Africa

History

In accordance with African cosmology, African historical consciousness viewed historical change and continuity, order and purpose within the framework of man and his environment, the gods, and his ancestors, and he believed himself part of a holistic spiritual entity. In African societies, the historical process is largely a communal one, with eyewitness accounts, hearsay, reminiscences, and occasionally visions, dreams, and hallucinations crafted into narrative oral traditions which are performed and transmitted through generations.

In oral traditions time is sometimes mythical and social, and ancestors were considered historical actors. Mind and memory shapes traditions, as events are condensed over time and crystallise into clichés.Oral tradition can be exoteric or esoteric. It speaks to people according to their understanding, unveiling itself in accordance with their aptitudes. In African epistemology, the epistemic subject "experiences the epistemic object in a sensuous, emotive, intuitive, abstractive understanding, rather than through abstraction alone, as is the case in Western epistemology" to arrive at a "complete knowledge", and as such oral traditions, music, proverbs, and the like were used in the preservation and transmission of knowledge.

Prehistory

Africa is considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth, with the Human species originating from the continent. During the mid-20th century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as seven million years ago ("Before Present"; BP). Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have evolved into modern humans, such as Australopithecus afarensis radiometrically dated to approximately 3.9–3.0 million BP, Paranthropus boisei (c. 2.3–1.4 million BP) and Homo ergaster (c. 1.9 million–600,000 BP) have been discovered.

After the evolution of Homo sapiens approximately 350,000 to 260,000 BP, the continent was mainly populated by groups of hunter-gatherers. These first modern humans left Africa and populated the rest of the globe during the Out of Africa II migration dated to approximately 50,000 years BP, exiting either across Bab-el-Mandeb over the Red Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, or the Isthmus of Suez.

Other migrations of modern humans have been dated to that time, with evidence of early human settlement found in southern Africa, Southeast Africa, North Africa, and the Sahara. During the African humid period, estimated to have been around 10,500 BP, the Sahara had again become a green fertile valley, and its populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands, with rock art paintings depicting a fertile Sahara and large populations discovered in Tassili n'Ajjer dating back perhaps 10 millennia. However, the warming and drying climate meant that by 5,000 BP, the Sahara region was becoming increasingly dry and hostile. Around 3500 BC, due to a tilt in Earth's orbit, the Sahara experienced a period of rapid desertification. The domestication of cattle preceded agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gatherer cultures. It is speculated that by 6,000 BP, cattle were domesticated in North Africa.

In West Africa, a wet phase ushered in an expanding rainforest and wooded savanna from Senegal to Cameroon. Between 9,000 and 5,000 BP, Niger–Congo speakers domesticated the oil palm and raffia palm. Black-eyed peas and voandzeia (African groundnuts) were domesticated, followed by okra and kola nuts. Since most of the plants grew in the forest, the Niger–Congo speakers invented polished stone axes for clearing forest. Pygmies are thought to have inhabited Central Africa for many millennia, splitting into eastern and western groups around 5,000 BP. Over 150,000 BP, there was an early dispersal of anatomically modern humans to Southern Africa, equated with the modern-day Khoisan who have preserved their traditional hunter-gatherer way of life.

4th millennium BC – 6th century AD

Northeast Africa

From 3500 BC, nomes (ruled by nomarchs) coalesced to form the kingdoms of Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt in northeast Africa. Around 3100 BC Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt to unify Egypt under the 1st dynasty, with the process of consolidation and assimilation completed by the time of the 3rd dynasty who formed the Old Kingdom of Egypt in 2686 BC. The Kingdom of Kerma emerged around this time to become the dominant force in Nubia, controlling territory as large as Egypt between the first and fourth cataracts of the Nile.

The height of the Old Kingdom saw the construction of many great pyramids, though under the 6th dynasty power gradually decentralised to the nomarchs, culminating in the disintegration of the kingdom, exacerbated by drought and famine. Around 2055 BC, the 11th dynasty, based in Thebes, conquered the others to form the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, and the 12th dynasty expanded into Lower Nubia at the expense of Kerma. Around 1700 BC, the Middle Kingdom fractured in two, and the Hyksos (a militaristic people from Palestine) invaded and conquered Lower Egypt, while Kerma coordinated invasions deep into Egypt to reach its greatest extent. In 1550 BC, the 18th dynasty expelled the Hyksos, and established the New Kingdom of Egypt. The New Kingdom conquered the Levant from the Canaanites, Mittani, Amorites, and Hittites, and extinguished Kerma, incorporating Nubia into the empire, and sending the Egyptian empire into its golden age. Internal struggles, drought, famine, and invasions by a confederation of seafaring peoples contributed to the New Kingdom's collapse in 1069 BC.

The New Kingdom's collapse liberated the Kingdom of Kush in Nubia, which manoeuvred into power in Upper Egypt and conquered Lower Egypt in 754 BC to form the Kushite Empire. The Kushites ruled for a century and oversaw a revival in pyramid building, until they were driven out of Egypt by the Assyrians in 663 BC in reprisal for their expansion towards the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians installed a puppet dynasty that later gained independence and once more unified Egypt, until it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire in 525 BC.

Egypt briefly regained independence from the Achaemenids under the 28th dynasty from 404 to 343 BC. The conquest of Achaemenid Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BC marked the beginning of Hellenistic rule and the installation of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty. The Ptolemaics lost their holdings outside of Africa to the Seleucids in the Syrian Wars, expanded into Cyrenaica, and briefly occupied part of Kush in the 3rd century BC. In the 1st century BC, Ptolemaic Egypt became entangled in a Roman civil war, leading to its conquest by the Romans in 30 BC. Kush persisted as a major regional power until, having been weakened from internal rebellion amid worsening climatic conditions, invasions by Aksum and the Noba caused their disintegration into Makuria, Alodia, and Nobatia around the 5th century AD.

Horn of Africa

In the Horn of Africa, there was the Land of Punt, a kingdom on the Red Sea which was a close trading partner of Ancient Egypt in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Archaeologist Rodolfo Fattovich equates it to the Gash Group in the Sudanese-Eritrean lowlands, and some scholars have hypothesised modern-day Somalia, while Kenneth Kitchen and Felix Chami locate it on Zanzibar Island. In the Eritrean-Ethiopian Highlands, the kingdom of dʿmt rose c. 980 BC as the region was incorporated into global trading networks, and it exhibited Sabaean influences which most scholars attribute to a small migration of Sabaeans and their assimilation. Several scholars consider there to have been other contemporaneous states, and dʿmt's collapse in the mid-1st century BC saw the region inhabited by small polities.

Modern-day Somalia was inhabited by nomadic pastoralists, and along the Horn's coast there were many ancient Somali city-states that thrived off of the wider Red Sea trade and enjoyed a lucrative monopoly on cinnamon from India due to their freedom from Roman interference. In the 1st century AD, the Kingdom of Aksum rose from a city-state to rule much of the northern Ethiopian-Eritrean Highlands and the Red Sea port of Adulis. Aksum was described as one of the four great powers by Persian prophet Mani in the 3rd century. King Ezana of Axum converted from traditional religion to Christianity in the 4th century, gradually followed by the population. In the 6th century, Aksum conquered South Arabia, though struggled to maintain control over it, and began to gradually lose its dominance over Red Sea trade to Persians and Arabs.

Northwest Africa

Northwest Africa (the Maghreb) was inhabited by Berber semi-nomadic pastoralists. In the 1st millennium BC, Phoenician migration and settlement came in search for precious metals in the Gulf of Tunis. This grew into Ancient Carthage after gaining independence from Phoenicia in the 6th century BC, and they built an extensive trading empire with a strict mercantile network. Carthage's collapse and conquest by Rome in the Punic Wars (3rd and 2nd centuries BC) saw Numidia and Mauretania become major powers in the Maghreb.

Towards the end of the 2nd century BC Mauretania fought alongside King Jugurtha of Numidia against the Romans in the Jugurthine War after he had usurped the Numidian throne from a Roman ally. Together they inflicted heavy casualties, with the war ending inconclusively when King Bocchus I of Mauretania sold out Jugurtha to the Romans. Around the turn of the millennium, both came under direct Roman rule. While Berber traditional religion predominated, some converted to Christianity. In the 5th century AD the Vandals conquered Roman Africa before the fall of Rome, though the province was reconquered by the Byzantines in the Vandalic War. Large swaths of indigenous peoples regained self-governance in Masuna and its numerous successor polities in the Maghreb, including the kingdoms of Ouarsenis, Aurès, and Altava.

West Africa

In the western Sahel the rise of settled communities occurred largely as a result of the domestication of millet and of sorghum, and cattle pastoralism began c. 2500 BC. Extensive east-west belts of deserts, grasslands, and forests from north to south were crucial for the moulding of their respective societies and meant that symbiotic trade relations developed in response to the differing environments. Beginning around 4000 BC, the Tichitt culture in modern-day Mauritania and Mali is the oldest known complexly organised society in West Africa, while others included the Kintampo culture in modern-day Ghana, the Nok culture in modern-day Nigeria, and the Daima culture around Lake Chad.

Towards the end of the 3rd century AD, a wet period in the Sahel created areas for human habitation and exploitation that had not been habitable for the best part of a millennium. The Ghana Empire (also called Wagadu) rose out of the Tichitt culture, growing wealthy following the introduction of the camel to the western Sahel, which revolutionised the trans-Saharan trade that linked their capital and Aoudaghost with Tahert and Sijilmasa in North Africa. Soninke tradition holds that the final founding of Wagadu occurred after Dinga did a deal with Bida, a serpent deity who was guarding a well, to sacrifice one maiden a year in exchange for assurance regarding plenty of rainfall and gold supply. Based on large tumuli scattered across West Africa dating to this period, several scholars have speculated that there were further simultaneous and preceding states relative to Wagadu.

Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa

In the grasslands of Cameroon, Bantu-speaking agriculturalists migrated southward sometime between 5000 BC and 3000 BC. Despite intensive research, the cause of the migrations, and that of the directions taken, is still unclear, however there is consensus that there were multiple dispersal events. Around 1500 BC, Bantu speakers reached central Cameroon. The 'Western Stream' likely followed the coast and the major rivers of the Congo system southwards to reach the southern fringe of the Congolian Rainforest around 500 BC (some may have used the sea to circumvent the rainforest). Their arrival coincided with the spread of iron metallurgy through Central Africa.

Meanwhile, the 'Eastern Stream' travelled either the northern fringe of the rainforest or the Ubangi River eastwards, and reached just west of Lake Victoria around 500 BC. While there, Bantu speakers adopted iron metallurgy from Cushitic speakers already present, and coexisted with them. Dispersal from the Great Lakes region occurred in two more streams. One went west to meet the Western Stream in the DR Congo and Angola, while the other went south and spread across Eastern and Southern Africa.

Around the turn of the millennium, Bantu speakers reached central modern-day Tanzania and near Dar es Salaam, before rapidly moving southwards along the coast to reach modern-day Kwazulu Natal in South Africa around the 3rd century AD. Throughout this, Bantu speakers displaced, replaced, or intermarried with and absorbed hunter-gatherer and agricultural groups.

c. 600 – c. 1800

North Africa, the Central Sahel and Sudan, and the Horn

In the 7th and 8th centuries, as part of the Arab conquests which sought to spread Islamic rule, the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates conquered North Africa at the expense of the Byzantine Empire and Berber leaders such as Kusaila and Kahina. Large numbers of Berber and Coptic people willingly converted to Islam, and followers of Abrahamic religions ('People of the Book') were protected, though followers of Berber traditional religion were violently oppressed. In the 8th century the Berber Revolt rocked the caliphate, and Berber dynasties took control over the Maghreb, while the Tulunids briefly controlled Egypt.

In the 10th century, the Fatimids rose to power in modern-day Tunisia, established a rival caliphate, and conquered Egypt, before expanding into the Middle East. In the 11th century the Almoravids conquered the Maghreb and intervened in the Christian reconquest of Iberia. Saladin, a Fatimid vizier, usurped power in the 12th century and established the Ayyubid dynasty which restored Egyptian prestige, while the Almohad revolution deposed the Almoravids to the east. After Christian gains in Iberia in the 13th century, the Almohads disintegrated into the Marinids, Zayyanids, and Hafsids in modern-day Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia respectively.

In the face of Mongol expansion, Mamluk generals seized power in Egypt and expanded into the Middle East. In the early-16th century, the Ottoman Empire rapidly conquered North Africa (save for Morocco under Saadi rule) to counter Spanish expansionism. In the following centuries, over a million Europeans are estimated to have been captured captured and enslaved by Barbary corsairs. The Ottoman regencies became more independent during the 18th century.

In the central Sahel around Lake Chad, the Kanem–Bornu Empire ruled from the 6th century, and projected power over the Hausa Kingdoms. To the east during 7th century, Makuria conquered Nobatia to become the dominant power in the region and resisted Muslim expansion. They later entered a severe decline following civil war and Arab migrations to the Sudan and had disintegrated by the 15th century, giving rise to the Funj Sultanate. The Tunjur kingdom's collapse in the central Sudan saw the rise of the Bagirmi, Wadai, and Darfur sultanates, which frequently raided the populations to their south for slaves.

In the Horn of Africa, Aksum lost control of the Red Sea, and its isolation from Christendom caused Ethiopian society to introspect and take inspiration from the Old Testament. Islamised Beja invaded the Ethiopian Highlands, forcing Aksum to migrate south, where, according to tradition, Aksum's expansion was met by a Jewish or traditionalist queen who destroyed the state c. 960. During the 13th century, hegemony in the Horn was contested by the Christian Zagwe, the Muslims of Shewa, and the traditionalist Damot; the Solomonic dynasty overthrew the Zagwe to found the Ethiopian Empire, while Shewa was replaced by Ifat. Soon after, Ethiopia conquered Damot and the Muslim states, entering into a 'golden age'.

In the 16th century Muslims united behind Adal in jihad to reconquer the Muslim lands and occupy Ethiopia, until, with Portuguese assistance, Ethiopia counter-attacked, and its sovereignty was restored in a reduced state. The 16th and 17th centuries also saw Oromo invasions into the Horn, weakening Ethiopia further and causing the collapse of Adal, while Ajuran on the east coast also disintegrated. Ethiopia briefly consolidated its authority in the late-17th century, though the turn of the century saw fragmentation and gradually-increasing anarchy, which continued throughout the 18th century.

West Africa

The Ghana Empire formed in the Sahel from between the 2nd and 8th centuries, while from the 7th century the Gao Empire ruled to its east. Almoravid capture of royal Aoudaghost led to Ghana's conversion to Islam in the 11th century, and climatic changes led to Ghana's conquest by its vassal Sosso Empire in the 13th century. Sosso was quickly overthrown by the Mali Empire who conquered Gao and dominated the trans-Saharan trade. The Mossi Kingdoms were established to its south.

The 15th century saw the crumbling of the Mali Empire, with the dominant power in the region becoming the Songhai Empire centered on Gao. Weakened by internal conflict, in 1591 Gao was conquered by Morocco, and the political vacuum came to be filled by the Segou Empire and several other states. The once lucrative trans-Saharan trade gradually lost its prominence to the coastal Atlantic trade with Europeans, and the following centuries saw many droughts, famines, and epidemics.

In the forest regions of West Africa, various kingdoms and empires flourished, such as the Yoruba empires of Ife and Oyo, the Igbo Kingdom of Nri, the Edo Kingdom of Benin (famous for its art), the Dagomba Kingdom of Dagbon, and the Akan kingdoms of Bonoman and Adanse. They came into contact with the Portuguese in the 15th century which saw the start of the Atlantic slave trade. The Asante Empire was established in present-day Ghana. Between 1515 and 1800, 8 million Africans were exported in the Atlantic slave trade.

Central Africa

In the western Congo Basin by the 13th century there were three main confederations of states: the Seven Kingdoms, Mpemba, and one led by Vungu. In the 14th century the Kingdom of Kongo emerged and dominated the region, with the Tio Kingdom to its north and Mwene Muji to its northeast. Portuguese arrival in the 15th century saw Kongo's ruler willingly convert to Catholicism and the start of the Atlantic trade, with slaves being the most lucrative export; in the 16th century, Afonso I's conquests produced many captives for Kongo's monopoly, and the slave trade rapidly grew to meet demand in the Americas. Over the course of the late-16th and 17th centuries, the Portuguese sought to conquer Ndongo (allied to Matamba) in the Angolan Wars; despite fierce resistance from Queen Nzinga, and brief occupation of Luanda by the Dutch (allied to Kongo), Portugal controlled most of Ndongo by the 1670s. The late-17th century saw Kongo fragment between royal houses as several vassals broke away; by the time of Kongo's restoration in 1709, it had ceased being the dominant regional power. Also during the 17th century, in the textile-producing northeast, the Boma, Yaka, and possibly the Kuba and Pende kingdoms broke away from Mwene Muji.

In the eastern Congo Basin, farmers, fishermen, and hunters (often Pygmies) built symbiotic relations. Jan Vansina wrote that in the southern savanna 'lords of the land' held priestly roles due to their special relationship with the spirits of the land, and held sway over multiple villages, effectively ruling embryonic kingdoms. Accordingly, as lineages grew, authority was opportunistically absorbed or incorporated by force. The centre of the Luba Empire is yet to undergo archaeological research, meaning knowledge about its rise is limited; its foundation is typically dated to the 14th/15th centuries, though scholarly estimates range from the 8th to 17th centuries. A Lunda state formed in the Nkalany Valley (estimates range from c. 1450 to c. 1700), in the 18th century, Lunda rapidly expanded into an extensive commonwealth across the southern savanna, using the institutions of perpetual kinship and positional succession to incorporate peoples. Meanwhile, Luba expanded its number of tributaries, in some cases using its widely acknowledged prestige to intervene in succession disputes and distribute ritually-powerful royal regalia related to bulopwe (sacred kingship), in other cases using conquest.

In the northern Great Lakes, the Empire of Kitara rose around the 11th century, famed for its oral traditions. Historian Peter Robertshaw considers its rulers (the Chwezi) to have been religious leaders who utilised networks of hill-top shrines to project authority. Around 1500, severe droughts and famine destabilised the region, occurring again during the early-17th and 18th centuries. Luo-speaking peoples migrated from the Upper Nile basin into modern-day Uganda, and a Biito dynasty replaced the Chwezi in Bunyoro-Kitara. Over the following centuries, the kingdoms of Bunyoro-Kitara, Buganda, and Rwanda struggled for hegemony among others. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, Bunyoro raided states to the south such as Nkore and Rwanda. Mpororo rose and fragmented during the 18th century, while Buganda rapidly expanded at the expense of Bunyoro to become the major power in the region.

Eastern and Southern Africa

The East African interior was inhabited by pastoralist Cushitic and Nilotic speakers, along with Bantu speakers who continued to expand and adapt to their lands while absorbing the former two; the 17th century saw the establishment of tributary systems that stabilised the region. On the Swahili coast the Swahili city-states thrived off of the Indian Ocean trade and gradually Islamized, giving rise to the Kilwa Sultanate from the 10th century. In the 15th century, trade routes for Zimbabwean gold shifted north, weakening Kilwa. The Portuguese arrived at the coast soon after and exploited divisions between coastal city-states to gain control over them while utilising a powerful navy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Lamu-Swahili cities rebelled against the Portuguese and allied the Omani Empire which supplanted Portuguese rule.

Madagascar was settled by Austronesian peoples between the 5th and 7th centuries, as societies organized at the behest of hasina and competed over with one another over the island's estuaries and bridgeheads. From around the 15th century, southern Madagascar became integrated into global trade; the Sakalava Empire rose to dominate west-coastal trade, accompanied by numerous other states, and the island saw several failed European colonial ventures.

In Southern Africa, an early kingdom was Mapungubwe, which collapsed c. 1300 as Great Zimbabwe, with its monumental dry-stone walls, rose to become the region's main political and economic centre. Following shifting trade routes north to the Zambezi and unclear circumstances, Great Zimbabwe entered into decline and was succeeded by the Mutapa Empire and Kingdom of Butua in the 15th century. Mutapa was briefly vassalised by the Portuguese in the 17th century, the latter half of which saw widespread famine and disease, until Changamire Dombo revolted in the 1680s, conquered Butua to found the Rozvi Empire, and expelled all Portuguese from the Zimbabwean plateau. Maravi around Lake Malawi expanded in the 17th century, but the collapse of its succession system in the 18th century precipitated its disintegration.

By the late-1st millennium CE, Bantu-speaking farmers populated most of Southern Africa's cultivable savannas, reaching southwards to the Kei River; they traded goods such as livestock, grain, and metal tools between communities and with hunter-gatherers. Around the 11th century, more agriculturists—who likely brought with them ancestral Nguni and Sotho-Tswana languages—migrated across the Limpopo River and came to dominate the earlier farmers both politically and culturally, organising into loosely-defined chiefdoms that held dynamic alliance networks. Further south, the Dutch began colonizing the western Cape in the 17th century, and Britain seized control of the Dutch Cape Colony around the turn of the 19th century. In the late-18th century, the interplay of pre-existing trends of political centralization with the effects of international trade, environmental instability, and European colonisation set the Mfecane ("Crushing") in motion, as various African states were founded.

c. 1800 – c. 1935

By the turn of the 19th century, many of Africa's economic and political structures were unstable and brittle as a result of long-term effects of the slave trade. In Egypt Muhammad Ali led a national movement to seize power from Ottoman suzerainty, instituting sweeping reforms and greatly strengthening Egyptian power by militaristic expansion. Meanwhile, in West Africa the Fula jihads, which had been gaining momentum throughout the 18th century, culminated in the establishment of the expansive Sokoto and Hamdullahi caliphates. In the Horn, Ethiopia underwent reforms, seeking to revive the imperial state, something that was later achieved by Menelik II's conquests. In Southern Africa the Mfecane propelled large long-distance migrations that caused widespread disruption across the vast region, while several Boer republics were founded. European campaigns to abolish the Atlantic slave trade led to supply refocusing on internal markets and saw the rapid growth of the Indian Ocean slave trade. Across the continent many rulers attempted reforms and indigenous forms of 'modernisation', however these efforts were consistently undermined by European traders and missionaries as the tide of European encroachment rose.

For 400 years, European nations had mainly limited their involvement to trading stations on the African coast, with few daring to venture inland. The Industrial Revolution in Europe produced several technological innovations which assisted them in overcoming this 400-year pattern. One was the development of repeating rifles, which were easier and quicker to load than muskets. Artillery was being used increasingly. In 1885, Hiram Maxim developed the maxim gun, the model of the modern-day machine gun. European states kept these weapons largely among themselves by refusing to sell these weapons to African leaders. African germs took numerous European lives and deterred permanent settlements. Diseases such as yellow fever, sleeping sickness, yaws, and leprosy made Africa a very inhospitable place for Europeans. The deadliest disease was malaria, endemic throughout Tropical Africa. In 1854, the discovery of quinine and other medical innovations helped to make conquest and colonisation in Africa possible.

There were strong motives for the conquest of Africa. Raw materials were needed for European factories, and free trade was championed to prevent Africans from regulating their economies. Prestige and imperial rivalries were at play. Acquiring African colonies would show rivals that a nation was powerful and significant. These contextual factors forged the Scramble for Africa; during the late-19th and early-20th centuries the European powers partitioned and conquered almost all of Africa despite fierce resistance (only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent). Traditional leaders were incorporated into the colonial regimes as a form of indirect rule to extract human and natural resources and curb organized resistance. Colonial borders were drawn unilaterally by the Europeans, often cutting across bonds of kinship, language, culture, and established routes, and sometimes incorporating groups who previously had little in common. The threat to trade routes was mitigated by poor policing and African entrepreneurs (viewed as smugglers) who exploited the differing tax and legal schemes. The first few decades of European colonialism saw intense violence, disorder, and atrocities, such as that of the Congo Free State, German South West Africa, and French Algeria, with the late colonial period relatively peaceful in comparison. Colonial rule had wide-reaching effects on African societies, such as the spread of Christianity as part of the 'civilising mission'. African culture was strongly denigrated and persecuted, as pervasive racial discrimination deepened the scars of humiliation.

Independence struggles

Imperial rule by Europeans continued until after the conclusion of World War II, when almost all remaining colonial territories gradually obtained formal independence. Independence movements in Africa gained momentum following World War II, which left the major European powers weakened. In 1951, Libya, a former Italian colony, gained independence. In 1956, Tunisia and Morocco won their independence from France. Ghana followed suit in 1957), becoming the first of the sub-Saharan colonies to be granted independence. Over the next decade, waves of decolonisation took place across the continent, culminating in the 1960 Year of Africa and the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963.

Portugal's overseas presence in sub-Saharan Africa (most notably in Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe) lasted from the 16th century to 1975, after the Estado Novo regime was overthrown in a military coup in Lisbon. Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1965, under the white minority government of Ian Smith but was not internationally recognised as an independent state (as Zimbabwe) until 1980, when black nationalists gained power after a bitter guerrilla war. Although South Africa was one of the first African countries to gain independence, the state remained under the control of the country's white minority, initially through qualified voting rights and from 1956 by a system of racial segregation known as apartheid, until 1994.

Post-colonial Africa

As of 2025, Africa contains 54 sovereign countries. Since independence, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African states are republics that operate under some form of the presidential system of rule. However, few of them have been able to sustain democratic governments on a permanent basis—per the criteria laid out by Lührmann et al. (2018), only Botswana and Mauritius have been consistently democratic for the entirety of their post-colonial history. Most African countries have experienced several coups or periods of military dictatorship. Between 1990 and 2018, though, the continent as a whole has trended towards more democratic governance.

Upon independence an overwhelming majority of Africans lived in extreme poverty. The continent suffered from the lack of infrastructural or industrial development under colonial rule, along with political instability. With limited financial resources or access to global markets, relatively stable countries such as Kenya still experienced only very slow economic development. Only a handful of countries succeeded in obtaining rapid economic growth prior to 1990. Exceptions include Libya and Equatorial Guinea, both of which possess large oil reserves.

Instability after decolonisation resulted primarily from marginalisation of ethnic groups, and corruption. In pursuit of personal political gain, many leaders deliberately promoted ethnic conflicts, some of which had originated during the colonial period, such as from the grouping of multiple unrelated ethnic groups into a single colony, the splitting of a distinct ethnic group between multiple colonies, or existing conflicts being exacerbated by colonial rule (for instance, the preferential treatment given to ethnic Hutus over Tutsis in Rwanda during German and Belgian rule).

Faced with increasingly frequent and severe violence, military rule was widely accepted by the population of many countries as means to maintain order, and during the 1970s and 1980s a majority of African countries were controlled by military dictatorships. Territorial disputes between nations and rebellions by groups seeking independence were also common in independent African states. The most devastating of these was the Nigerian Civil War, fought between government forces and an Igbo separatist republic, which resulted in a famine that killed 1–2 million people. Two civil wars in Sudan, the first lasting from 1955 to 1972 and the second from 1983 to 2005, collectively killed around 3 million. Both were fought primarily on ethnic and religious lines.

Cold War conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union also contributed to instability. Both the Soviet Union and the United States offered considerable incentives to political and military leaders who aligned themselves with the superpowers' foreign policy. As an example, during the Angolan Civil War, the Soviet and Cuban aligned MPLA and the American aligned UNITA received the vast majority of their military and political support from these countries. Many African countries became highly dependent on foreign aid. The sudden loss of both Soviet and American aid at the end of the Cold War and fall of the USSR resulted in severe economic and political turmoil in the countries most dependent on foreign support.

There was a major famine in Ethiopia between 1983 and 1985, killing up to 1.2 million people, which most historians attribute primarily to the forced relocation of farmworkers and seizure of grain by the communist Derg government, further exacerbated by the Ethiopian Civil War. In 1994 a genocide in Rwanda resulted in up to 800,000 deaths, added to a severe refugee crisis and fuelled the rise of militia groups in neighbouring countries. This contributed to the outbreak of the first and second Congo Wars, which were the most devastating military conflicts in modern Africa, with up to 5.5 million deaths, making it by far the deadliest conflict in modern African history and one of the costliest wars in human history. In 2025 it is estimated 20% of Africans face hunger in 2025, compared to 6% of Asia, 5% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 8% in Oceania, and less than 2.5% in North America and Europe.

Various conflicts between various insurgent groups and governments continue. From 2003-2020 a conflict in Darfur resulted in around 300,000 deaths. The Boko Haram insurgency in Sub-Saharan Africa has killed around 350,000 people since 2009. The Tigray war from 2020 to 2022 killed an estimated 300,000–500,000 people, primarily due to famine. Overall, violence across Africa has greatly declined in the 21st century, with the end of civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone, and Algeria in 2002, Liberia in 2003, and Sudan and Burundi in 2005. The Second Congo War, which involved 9 countries and several insurgent groups, ended in 2003. This decline in violence coincided with many countries abandoning communist-style command economies and opening up for market reforms, which over the course of the 1990s and 2000s promoted the establishment of permanent, peaceful trade between neighbouring countries.

Improved stability and economic reforms have led to a great increase in foreign investment into many nations, mainly from China, which further spurred economic growth. Between 2000 and 2014, annual GDP growth in sub-Saharan Africa averaged 5%, doubling its total GDP from $811 billion to $1.63 trillion (constant 2015 USD). North Africa experienced comparable growth rates. A significant part of this growth can also be attributed to the facilitated diffusion of information technologies and specifically the mobile telephone. While several individual countries have maintained high growth rates, since 2014 overall growth has considerably slowed, primarily as a result of falling commodity prices, continued lack of industrialisation, and epidemics such as Ebola and COVID-19.

Geography

Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from the largest landmass of the Earth. Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez (transected by the Suez Canal), 163 km (101 mi) wide. Geopolitically, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula east of the Suez Canal is often considered part of Africa as well.

The coastline is 26,000 km (16,000 mi) long, and the absence of deep indentations of the shore is illustrated by the fact that Europe, which covers only 10,400,000 km² (4,000,000 sq mi) – about a third of the surface of Africa – has a coastline of 32,000 km (20,000 mi). From the most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia (37°21' N), to the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas in South Africa (34°51'15" S), is a distance of approximately 8,000 km (5,000 mi). Cape Verde, 17°33'22" W, the westernmost point, is a distance of approximately 7,400 km (4,600 mi) to Ras Hafun, 51°27'52" E, the most easterly projection that neighbours Cape Guardafui, the tip of the Horn of Africa.

The largest country is Algeria and smallest is Seychelles, an archipelago off the east coast. The smallest nation on the continental mainland is The Gambia.

African plate

The African plate, also known as the Nubian plate, is a major tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Africa (except for its easternmost part) and the adjacent oceanic crust to the west and south. It also includes a narrow strip of Western Asia along the Mediterranean Sea, including much of Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. It is bounded by the North American plate and South American plate to the west (separated by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge); the Arabian plate and Somali plate to the east; the Eurasian plate, Aegean Sea plate and Anatolian plate to the north; and the Antarctic plate to the south.

Between 60 million years ago and 10 million years ago, the Somali plate began rifting from the African plate along the East African Rift. Since the continent of Africa consists of crust from both the African and the Somali plates, some literature refers to the African plate as the Nubian plate to distinguish it from the continent as a whole.

Climate

The climate of Africa ranges from tropical to subarctic on its highest peaks. Its northern half is primarily desert or arid, while its central and southern areas contain both savanna plains and dense jungle (rainforest) regions. In between, there is a convergence, where vegetation patterns such as sahel and steppe dominate. Africa is the hottest continent on Earth, and 60% of the land surface consists of drylands and deserts. The record for the highest-ever recorded temperature, in Libya in 1922 (58 °C (136 °F)), was discredited in 2013.

Climate change

Climate change in Africa is a serious threat because the continent is one of the most vulnerable regions to the effects of climate change, despite being responsible for less than 4% of global greenhouse emissions. Climate change is causing increasingly erratic rainfall patterns, more frequent extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and rising sea-surface temperatures across the continent. These changes threaten food and water security, biodiversity, public health, and economic development. Africa is currently warming faster than the rest of the world on average.

Climate change intensifies existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Large segments of the African population depend on climate-sensitive livelihoods such as agriculture (55 - 62% of the workforce in sub-Saharan Africa) and already live in poverty, heightening their exposure to shocks. Health outcomes worsen as heat stress, vector-borne diseases (such as malaria and dengue), and malnutrition become more prevalent. Over half (56%) of the over 2,000 recorded public health incidents in Africa between 2001 and 2021 were connected to climate change. Resource scarcity contributes to displacement and conflict, particularly in fragile regions. Urban areas, often characterized by informal settlements, face heightened risks from flooding and extreme heat.

Ecology and biodiversity

Africa has over 3,000 protected areas, with 198 marine protected areas, 50 biosphere reserves, and 80 wetlands reserves. Significant habitat destruction, increases in human population, and poaching are reducing the biological diversity and arable land. Human encroachment, civil unrest and the introduction of non-native species threaten biodiversity. This has been exacerbated by administrative problems, inadequate personnel and funding problems.

Deforestation is affecting Africa at twice the world rate, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. The deforestation rate of 4.08 million hectares in 2000–2015 declined to 3.45 million ha per year in 2015–2025. According to the University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center, 31% of pasture lands and 19% of forests and woodlands are classified as degraded, and the deforestation rate is twice the average for the rest of the world. Some sources claim that approximately 90% of the original, virgin forests in West Africa have been destroyed. Over 90% of Madagascar's original forests have been destroyed since the arrival of humans 2,000 years ago. About 65% of agricultural land suffers from soil degradation.

Fauna

Africa boasts perhaps the world's largest combination of density and "range of freedom" of wild animal populations and diversity, with wild populations of large carnivores (such as lions, hyenas, and cheetahs) and herbivores (such as buffalo, elephants, camels, and giraffes) ranging freely on primarily open non-private plains. It is also home to a variety of "jungle" animals including snakes and primates and aquatic life such as crocodiles and amphibians. Africa has the largest number of megafauna species, as it was least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna.

Environmental issues

African environmental problems are problems caused by the direct and indirect human impacts on the natural environment and affect humans and nearly all forms of life in Africa. Issues include deforestation, soil degradation, air pollution, water pollution, coastal erosion, garbage pollution, climate change, Oil spills, Biodiversity loss, and water scarcity (resulting in problems with access to safe water supply and sanitation). These issues result in environmental conflict and are connected to broader social struggles for democracy and sovereignty. The scarcity of climate adaptation techniques in Africa makes it the least resilient continent to climate change.

Politics

African Union

The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of 55 member states. The union was formed with Addis Ababa as its headquarters in 2001 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity. The Pan-African Parliament (PAP) is located in Midrand, South Africa.

The African Union, not to be confused with the AU Commission, is formed by the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which aims to transform the African Economic Community, a federated commonwealth, into a state under established international conventions. The Assembly of the African Union consists of legislative, judicial and executive organs. It is led by the African Union president and head of state, who is also the president of PAP. The president is elected by PAP. The powers and authority of the president of the Assembly derive from the Constitutive Act and the Protocol of the Pan-African Parliament, as well as the inheritance of presidential authority stipulated by African treaties and by international treaties. The government consists of all-union, regional, state, and municipal authorities, as well as hundreds of institutions, that together manage the day-to-day affairs of the institution.

Extensive human rights abuses still occur in several parts of Africa, often under the oversight of the state. Most of such violations occur for political reasons, often as a side effect of civil war. Countries where major human rights violations have been reported in recent times include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Ivory Coast.

Boundary conflicts

African nations have made great efforts to respect international borders as inviolate for a long time. For example, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which was established in 1963 and replaced by the African Union in 2002, set the respect for the territorial integrity of each country as one of its principles in OAU Charter. Indeed, compared with the formation of European countries, there have been fewer international conflicts in Africa for changing the borders, which has influenced country formation there and has enabled some countries to survive that might have been defeated and absorbed by others. Yet international conflicts have played out by support for proxy armies or rebel movements. Many states have experienced civil wars: including Rwanda, Sudan, Angola, Sierra Leone, Congo, Liberia, Ethiopia and Somalia. Wars of national liberation also often took up a Marxist, Marxist–Leninist, or Maoist character in ideological terms, where the independence of African nations was raised in Marxian terms. Early examples included the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon armed movement against French colonialism, a Marxist–Leninist insurgency, followed by similar movements in Congo (the Simba Rebellion). Che Guevara participated in the latter, and opined in 1967 that Africa was not ready for revolution. Despite this, in Zanzibar before and after unification with Tanzania, forms of socialism took hold. In Sudan under Gaafar Nimeiry, in Somalia under Siad Barre, in Ethiopia under the Dergue and Mengistu Haile Mariam, in Congo Brazzaville under various administration from the 1960s onwards including that of Denis Sassou-Nguesso, in Benin under Mathieu Kerekou, in the Seychelles under France-Albert René, in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau before Portugal's 1974 Carnation Revolution, Marxism–Leninism was fashionable. Even after 1990, there are some examples of Military Marxism, such as a militia established by Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba in Eastern Congo in the 1990s.

List of states and territories

AlgeriaTogoBeninBotswanaCameroonCent Afr RepChadDemocratic
Republic of
the CongoDjiboutiEgyptEquatorial GuineaEritreaEthiopiaCape*
VerdeLibyaMaliGhanaSierra
LeoneIvory
CoastBurkina
FasoMauritaniaMoroccoSão Tomé
and Príncipe*GabonNamibiaNigerNigeriaCongoSomaliaSomalilandSouth AfricaSudanSouth SudanTunisiaWestern
SaharaSenegalThe GambiaGuinea-
BissauGuineaKenyaLiberiaMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueBurundiRwandaUgandaTanzaniaAngolaSaint Helena (UK)^*LesothoEswatiniZambiaZimbabweMauritius*Réunion**ComorosSeychellesAtlantic
OceanAtlantic
OceanIndian
OceanStrait of GibraltarMediterranean SeaRed
Sea

The countries in this table are categorised according to the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations, and data included are per sources in cross-referenced articles. Where they differ, provisos are clearly indicated.

Other territories

This list contains nine territories that are administered as incorporated areas of a primarily non-African country but that belong geographically to the African continent.

Economy

Although it has abundant natural resources, Africa remains the world's poorest and least-developed continent (other than Antarctica), the result of a variety of causes that may include corrupt governments that have often committed serious human rights violations, failed central planning, high levels of illiteracy, low self-esteem, lack of access to foreign capital, legacies of colonialism, the slave trade, the Cold War, and frequent tribal and military conflict (ranging from guerrilla warfare to genocide). The continent's total nominal GDP remains behind that of several individual countries, including the United States, China, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, India and France. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 24 ranked nations (151st to 175th) were all African.

Poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, inadequate water supply and sanitation, and poor health affect a large proportion of the people. A 2008 World Bank estimates 81% of the sub-Saharan African population were living on less than $2.50 (PPP) per day in 2005, compared with 86% for India. Sub-Saharan Africa is the least successful region of the world in reducing poverty; some 50% of the population living in poverty in 1981 (200 million people), a figure that rose to 58% in 1996 before dropping to 50% in 2005 (380 million people). The average poor person in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to live on only 70 cents per day and was poorer in 2003 than in 1973, indicating increasing poverty in some areas. Some of it is attributed to unsuccessful economic liberalisation programmes spearheaded by foreign companies and governments, but other studies cite bad domestic government policies more than external factors.

The last debt crisis in 2005 was resolved with help from the heavily indebted poor countries scheme, which resulted in some positive and negative effects on the economy in Africa. About 10 years after the 2005 debt crisis in sub-Saharan Africa was resolved, Zambia fell back into debt. A small reason was due to the fall in copper prices in 2011, but the bigger reason was that a large amount of the money Zambia borrowed was wasted or pocketed by the elite.

From 1995 to 2005, Africa's rate of economic growth increased, averaging 5% in 2005. Some countries experienced still higher growth rates, notably Angola, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea, all of which had increased oil production.

The following table shows the projected nominal GDP and GDP per capita (at purchasing power parity) in 2026 by the IMF.

The continent is believed to hold 90% of the world's cobalt, 90% of its platinum, 50% of its gold, 98% of its chromium, 70% of its tantalite, 64% of its manganese and one-third of its uranium. The DRC has 70% of the world's coltan, a mineral used in the production of tantalum capacitors for electronic devices such as cell phones. The DRC also has more than 30% of the world's diamond reserves. Guinea is the world's largest exporter of bauxite. As the growth in Africa has been driven mainly by services and not manufacturing or agriculture, it has been growth without jobs and without reduction in poverty levels. In fact, the food security crisis of 2008 (which took place following the global financial crisis) pushed 100 million people into food insecurity. In 2024 nearly 307 million people were undernourished (46% of the global total), an increase of 10 million people since 2023 and 34 million from 2022.

China has built increasingly stronger ties with African nations and is Africa's largest trading partner. In 2007, Chinese companies invested a total of US$1 billion in Africa.

A Harvard University study led by professor Calestous Juma shows that Africa could feed itself by making the transition from importer to self-sufficiency. "African agriculture is at the crossroads; we have come to the end of a century of policies that favoured Africa's export of raw materials and importation of food. Africa is starting to focus on agricultural innovation as its new engine for regional trade and prosperity."

Energy

Energy in Africa is characterised by low per-capita consumption and limited access to modern energy services, reflecting both infrastructural and socio-economic challenges across the continent. As of 2023, Africa accounted for just 5.5% of global total final energy consumption, with per-capita energy use more than three times lower than the global average. The energy mix is dominated by biofuels and waste, which make up 43% of total final consumption, primarily for household cooking and heating, followed by oil products at 33%, electricity at 11%, natural gas at 9%, and coal at 4%.

Electricity access remains a major challenge, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 450 million rural residents lack reliable electricity, and grid coverage is often inconsistent. Clean cooking solutions are similarly underdeveloped, leaving over 900 million people reliant on polluting fuels such as firewood, charcoal, and agricultural residues, which disproportionately affect women and children. Transport energy is dominated by oil products, reflecting low motorisation rates and limited adoption of electric mobility, although countries such as Ethiopia, Morocco, and Egypt have begun adopting policies to reduce fossil fuel dependency.

Africa possesses some of the world's most abundant energy resources, including oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass, much of which remains underutilised. While fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas continue to dominate energy production and electricity generation in Africa, renewable sources are increasingly expanding across the continent. Hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, and modern biomass are growing in capacity, though their deployment remains uneven and limited compared to the continent's vast potential. Hydropower is the largest non-combustible renewable source, while solar energy offers immense potential due to high irradiation levels, particularly in the Sahara and Sahel.

There are regional differences: North Africa is dominated by oil and gas production, Southern Africa by coal and hydropower, East Africa by hydropower and geothermal, and West and Central Africa face major electrification gaps despite hydroelectric potential.

Infrastructure

Water resources

Water development and management are complex due to the multiplicity of trans-boundary water resources (rivers, lakes and aquifers). Around 75% of sub-Saharan Africa falls within 53 international river basin catchments that traverse multiple borders. This particular constraint can also be converted into an opportunity if the potential for trans-boundary cooperation is harnessed in the development of the area's water resources. A multi-sectoral analysis of the Zambezi River, for example, shows that riparian cooperation could lead to a 23% increase in firm energy production without any additional investments. Several institutional and legal frameworks for transboundary cooperation exist, such as the Zambezi River Authority, the Southern African Development Community protocol, Volta River Authority and the Nile Basin Commission. However, additional efforts are required to further develop political will as well as the financial capacities and institutional frameworks needed for multilateral cooperative actions and optimal solutions for all riparians.

Demographics

Africa is considered by anthropologists to be the most genetically diverse continent as a result of being the longest inhabited. The population has rapidly increased over the last 40 years and is consequently relatively young. In some states, more than half the population is under 25 years of age. The population increased from 229 million in 1950 to 630 million in 1990. As of 2021, the population is estimated at 1,394 million. Africa's total population surpassing other continents is fairly recent; the population surpassed Europe in the 1990s, while the Americas was overtaken sometime around 2000. This increase in number of babies born in Africa compared to the rest of the world is expected to reach approximately 37% in the year 2050; while in 1990 sub-Saharan Africa accounted for only 16% of the world's births.

The total fertility rate (children per woman) for sub-Saharan Africa is 4.7 as of 2018, the highest in the world. All countries in sub-Saharan Africa had rates above replacement level in 2019 and accounted for 27.1% of global live births. In 2021, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 29% of global births.

Speakers of Bantu languages (part of the Niger–Congo family) are the majority in southern, central and southeast Africa. The Bantu-speaking peoples from the Sahel progressively expanded over most of sub-Saharan Africa. But there are also several Nilotic groups in South Sudan and East Africa, the mixed Swahili people on the Swahili coast, and a few remaining indigenous Khoisan and Pygmy peoples in Southern and Central Africa, respectively. Bantu speakers predominate in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and are found in parts of southern Cameroon. In the Kalahari Desert the distinct people known as the Bushmen (also "San", closely related to but distinct from Khoekhoe) have long been present. The San are physically distinct from other Africans and are the indigenous people of southern Africa. Pygmies are the pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of Central Africa.

The peoples of West Africa primarily speak Niger–Congo languages, belonging mostly to its non-Bantu branches, though some Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic speaking groups are also found. The Niger–Congo-speaking Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, Akan, and Wolof ethnic groups are the largest and most influential. In the central Sahara, Mandinka or Mande groups are most significant. Chadic-speaking groups, including the Hausa, are found in more northerly parts of the region nearest to the Sahara. Nilo-Saharan communities such as the Songhai, Kanuri, and Zarma are found in eastern West Africa.

The peoples of North Africa consist of three main indigenous groups: Berbers in the northwest, Egyptians in the northeast, and Nilo-Saharan-speaking peoples in the east. The Arabs who arrived in the 7th century introduced the Arabic language and Islam to North Africa. The Semitic Phoenicians (who founded Carthage) and Hyksos, the Indo-Iranian Alans, the Indo-European Greeks, Romans, and Vandals settled in North Africa as well. Significant Berber communities remain within Morocco and Algeria in the 21st century, while, Berber speakers are also present in some regions of Tunisia and Libya. The Berber-speaking Tuareg and other often nomadic peoples are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa. In Mauritania, there is a small nearly extinct Berber community in the north and Niger–Congo-speaking peoples in the south, though in both regions Arabic and Arab culture predominates. In Sudan, although Arabic and Arab culture predominate, it is mostly inhabited by groups that originally spoke Nilo-Saharan, such as the Nubians, Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, who, over the centuries, have variously intermixed with migrants from the Arabian peninsula. Small communities of Afroasiatic-speaking Beja nomads are found in Egypt and Sudan.

In the Horn of Africa, some Ethiopian and Eritrean groups (like the Amhara and Tigrayans, collectively known as Habesha) speak languages from the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, while the Oromo and Somali speak languages from the Cushitic branch of Afroasiatic.

Prior to the decolonisation movements of the post-World War II era, Europeans were represented in every part of Africa. Decolonization during the 1960s and 1970s often resulted in the mass emigration of white settlers—especially from Algeria and Morocco (1.6 million pieds-noirs in North Africa), Kenya, Congo, Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola. Between 1975 and 1977, over a million colonials returned to Portugal alone. Nevertheless, white Africans remain an important minority in many African states, particularly Zimbabwe, Namibia, Réunion, and South Africa. The country with the largest white African population is South Africa. Dutch and British diasporas represent the largest communities of European ancestry on the continent.

European colonisation brought sizable groups of Asians, particularly South Asians, to British colonies. Large Indian communities are found in South Africa, and smaller ones are present in Kenya, Tanzania, and some other southern and southeast African countries. The large Indian community in Uganda was expelled by Idi Amin in 1972, though many have since returned. The islands in the Indian Ocean are populated primarily by people of Asian origin, often mixed with Africans and Europeans. The Malagasy peoples of Madagascar are an Austronesian people, but those along the coast are generally mixed with Bantu, Arab, Indian and European origins. Malay and Indian ancestries are components in Cape Coloureds (people with origins in two or more races and continents). During the 20th century, small but economically important communities of Lebanese have developed in West and East Africa.

Alternative estimates of African population, 1–2018 AD (in thousands)

Source: Maddison and others (University of Groningen)

Shares of Africa and world population, 1–2020 AD (% of world total)

Source: Maddison and others (University of Groningen)

Genetic history

Africa has the greatest human genetic diversity of any continent. Ancient DNA and genomic studies reveal deep population structure, with substantial differentiation among ancestral populations in southern, eastern, central, western, and northern Africa, alongside repeated migration and admixture. Some genetic models also infer admixture with deeply divergent, now-extinct "ghost" populations of archaic humans in Africa, whose fossil or genomic identity remains unknown. Later demographic expansions, including the spread of Bantu-speaking populations, substantially reshaped this genetic landscape. Ancient genomes also show distinct demographic histories in North Africa, including long-term regional continuity and later gene flow from Eurasia and elsewhere in Africa.

The Sahara served as a trans-regional passageway and place of dwelling for people in Africa during various humid phases and periods throughout the history of Africa. Early Holocene genetic evidence indicates contacts between populations of the Lake Chad Basin and North Africa. The mitochondrial DNA haplogroup L3e5, which probably originated in the Lake Chad Basin around 10,000 years ago, occurs both there and in parts of North Africa, suggesting gene flow across the Sahara during a period of increased humidity.

Ancient DNA provides evidence for substantial genetic continuity in North Africa alongside contacts with populations from Western Asia. A whole genome from an individual buried at Nuwayrat in Middle Egypt around 2855–2570 BCE was modelled as predominantly deriving from North African Neolithic ancestry, with about 20% of his ancestry related to populations of the eastern Fertile Crescent, including Mesopotamia. Later ancient Egyptians also show increased ancestry related to the Levant, while present-day Egyptians have additional ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. Ancient genomes from the Green Sahara likewise indicate the existence of a deeply divergent North African lineage, closely related to ancestry found in 15,000-year-old Taforalt foragers in Morocco.

According to a recent study, the Arab migrations to the Maghreb was mainly a demographic process that heavily implied gene flow and remodelled the genetic structure of the Maghreb region in North Africa, rather than a mere cultural replacement as claimed by older studies. Another study found out that the majority of J-M267 (Eu10) chromosomes in the Maghreb are due to the recent gene flow caused by the Arab migrations to the Maghreb in the first millennium CE as both southern Qahtanite and northern Adnanite Arabs added to the heterogenous Maghrebi ethnic melting pot. The Eu10 chromosome pool in the Maghreb is derived not only from early Neolithic dispersions from Western Asia but to a much greater extent from recent expansions of Arab tribes from the Arabian Peninsula. While acknowledging the genetic impact of Arabization of Northwest Africa during the Islamic period, other authors have suggested that earlier migration processes, such as the arrival of Neolithic Revolution era famers from Western Asia and Southern Europe together with Bronze Age and Iron Age input from Mesopotamia and the Levant were ultimately more genetically impactful.

David Schoenbrun, Christopher Ehret, Steven A. Brandt and Shomarka Keita (2025) have highlighted the problematic categorisation of genetic haplogroups characterised as 'African' and 'Eurasian' in North African genome studies. In reference to the van de Loosdrecht et al. 2018 study on the epipalaeolithic Taforalt remains from Morocco, which identified the EM35 (primarily EM78) common in north-eastern Africa but characterised the mtDNA (female lineage haplogroups) of U6 and M1 as 'Eurasian', the authors questioned the classification of these maternal haplogroups despite their localised and long-established presence in ancient African populations. In their view, identifying a range of African populations may still remain an issue "since the idea of 'African' still gets stereotyped or restricted. (Accepting the southwestern Asian/Levantine geographical continuity with Africa eliminates a conceptual barrier related to racio-typological thinking permitting an Africasian construct analogous to Eurasian.)".

Religion

While Africans profess a wide variety of religious beliefs, the majority of the people respect African religions or parts of them. However, in formal surveys or census, most people will identify with major religions that came from outside the continent, mainly through colonisation. There are several reasons for this, the main one being the colonial idea that African religious beliefs and practices are not good enough. Religious beliefs and statistics on religious affiliation are difficult to come by since they are often a sensitive topic for governments with mixed religious populations. According to the World Book Encyclopedia, Islam and Christianity are the two largest religions. Islam is most prevalent in and is the state religion of many North African countries, such as Algeria, where 99% of the population practices Islam. The majority of people in Southern, Southeast, and Central Africa, as well as in a sizable portion of the Horn of Africa and West Africa, identify as Christians. Coptic Christians constitute a sizable minority in Egypt, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the largest church in Ethiopia, with 36 million and 51 million adherents. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, 45% of the population are Christians, 40% are Muslims, and 10% follow traditional religions. A small number of Africans are Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianist, Baháʼí, or Jewish. There is a minority of people who are irreligious.

Languages

By most estimates, well over a thousand languages (UNESCO has estimated around two thousand) are spoken in Africa. Most are of African origin, though some are of European or Asian origin. Africa is the most multilingual continent in the world, and it is not rare for individuals to fluently speak multiple African languages as well as one or more European languages. There are four major groups indigenous to Africa:

• The Afroasiatic languages are a language family of about 240 languages and 285 million people widespread throughout the Horn of Africa, North Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia.
• The Nilo-Saharan languages consist of a group of several possibly related families, spoken by 30 million people between 100 languages. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by ethnic groups in Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, and northern Tanzania.
• The Niger-Congo language family covers much of sub-Saharan Africa. In terms of number of languages, it is the largest language family in Africa and perhaps one of the largest in the world.
• The Khoisan languages form a group of three unrelated families and two isolates and number about fifty in total. They are mainly spoken in Southern Africa by approximately 400,000 people. Many of the Khoisan languages are endangered. The Khoi and San peoples are considered the original inhabitants of this part of Africa.

Following the end of colonialism, nearly all countries adopted official languages that originated outside the continent, although several countries also granted legal recognition to indigenous languages (such as Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa). In numerous countries, English and French (see African French) are used for communication in the public sphere such as government, commerce, education and the media. Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans and Spanish are examples of languages that trace their origin to outside of Africa, and that are used by millions of Africans today, both in the public and private spheres. Italian is spoken by some in former Italian colonies. German is spoken in Namibia, as it was a former German protectorate. At least one-fifth of Africans speak the former colonial languages. Moreover, in recent years some countries have been considering removing their official former colonial languages, such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger which removed French as an official language in the 2020s in favour of native languages, while also renaming colonial street names.

Health

More than 85% of individuals use traditional medicine as an alternative to often expensive allopathic medical health care and costly pharmaceutical products. The OAU declared the 2000s as the African Decade on African traditional medicine in an effort to promote The WHO African Region's adopted resolution for institutionalising traditional medicine in health care systems. Public policymakers in the region are challenged with consideration of the importance of traditional/indigenous health systems and whether their coexistence with the modern medical and health sub-sector would improve the equitability and accessibility of health care distribution, the health status of populations, and the social-economic development of nations within sub-Saharan Africa.

AIDS in post-colonial Africa is a prevalent issue. Although the continent is home to about 15.2 percent of the world's population, more than two-thirds of the total infected worldwide—some 35 million people—were Africans, of whom 15 million have died. Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounted for an estimated 69 percent of all people living with HIV and 70 percent of all AIDS deaths in 2011. In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS has raised death rates and lowered life expectancy among adults between ages 20 and 49 by about 20 years. Life expectancy has declined largely as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with life-expectancy in some countries reaching as low as 34 years.

Culture

Africa is divided into a great number of ethnic cultures. Cultural regeneration has been an integral aspect of post-independence nation-building, with a recognition of the need to harness the cultural resources to enrich the process of education, requiring the creation of an enabling environment in several ways. In recent times, the call for a much greater emphasis on the cultural dimension in all aspects of development has become increasingly vocal. Some aspects of traditional cultures have become less practised in recent years as a result of neglect and suppression by colonial and post-colonial regimes. For example, African customs were discouraged, and African languages were prohibited in mission schools, while colonialists such as Leopold II of Belgium attempted to "civilize" Africans by discouraging polygamy and witchcraft.

Editors F. Abiola Irele and Simon Gikandi comment that the current identity of African literature had its genesis in the "traumatic encounter between Africa and Europe". On the other hand, Mhoze Chikowero believes that Africans deployed music, dance, spirituality, and other performative cultures to (re)assert themselves as active agents and indigenous intellectuals, to unmake their colonial marginalisation and reshape their own destinies.

As of March 2023, 98 African properties are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites, with 54 cultural sites, 39 natural sites, and 5 mixed sites. The List of World Heritage in Danger includes 15 African sites.

Visual art

African art refers to works of visual art, including works of sculpture, painting, metalwork, and pottery, originating from the various peoples of the African continent and influenced by distinct, indigenous traditions of aesthetic expression.

While the various artistic traditions of such a large and diverse continent display considerable regional and cultural variety, there are consistent artistic themes, recurring motifs, and unifying elements across the broad spectrum of the African visual expression. As is the case for every artistic tradition in human history, African art was created within specific social, political, and religious contexts. Likewise, African art was often created not purely for art's sake, but rather with some practical, spiritual, and/or didactic purpose in mind. In general, African art prioritizes conceptual and symbolic representation over realism, aiming to visualize the subject's spiritual essence.

Ethiopian art, heavily influenced by Ethiopia's long-standing Christian tradition, is also different from most African art, where Traditional African religion (with Islam prevalent in the north east and north west presently) was dominant until the 20th century. African art includes prehistoric and ancient art, the Islamic art of West Africa, the Christian art of East Africa, and the traditional artifacts of these and other regions. Many African sculptures were historically made of wood and other natural materials that have not survived from earlier than a few centuries ago, although rare older pottery and metal figures can be found in some areas. Some of the earliest decorative objects, such as shell beads and evidence of paint, have been discovered in Africa, dating to the Middle Stone Age.

Masks are important elements in the art of many people, along with human figures, and are often highly stylized. There exist diverse styles, which can often be observed within a single context of origin and may be influenced by the intended use of the object. Nevertheless, broad regional trends are discernible. Sculpture is most common among "groups of settled cultivators in the areas drained by the Niger and Congo rivers" in West Africa. Direct images of deities are relatively infrequent, but masks in particular are or were often made for ritual ceremonies. Since the late 19th century, there has been an increasing amount of African art in Western collections, the finest pieces of which are displayed as part of the history of colonization.

African art had an important influence on European Modernist art, which was inspired by their interest in abstract depiction. It was this appreciation of African sculpture that has been attributed to the very concept of "African art", as seen by European and American artists and art historians.

Obidoh Freeborn posits that colonialism is one element that has created the character of modern African art. According to authors Douglas Fraser and Herbert M. Cole, "The precipitous alterations in the power structure wrought by colonialism were quickly followed by drastic iconographic changes in the art." Fraser and Cole assert that in Igboland some art objects "lack the vigor and careful craftsmanship of the earlier art objects that served traditional functions". Author Chika Okeke-Agulu states "the racist infrastructure of British imperial enterprise forced upon the political and cultural guardians of empire a denial and suppression of an emergent sovereign Africa and modernist art".

Architecture

Like other aspects of the culture of Africa, the architecture of Africa is exceptionally diverse. Throughout the history of Africa, Africans have developed their own local architectural traditions. In some cases, broader regional styles can be identified, such as the Sudano-Sahelian architecture of West Africa. A common theme in traditional African architecture is the use of fractal scaling: small parts of the structure tend to look similar to larger parts, such as a circular village made of circular houses.

African architecture in some areas has been influenced by external cultures for centuries, according to available evidence. Western architecture has influenced coastal areas since the late 15th century and is now an important source of inspiration for many larger buildings, particularly in major cities.

African architecture uses a wide range of materials, including thatch, stick/wood, mud, mudbrick, rammed earth, and stone. These material preferences vary by region: North Africa for stone and rammed earth, the Horn of Africa for stone and mortar, West Africa for mud/adobe, Central Africa for thatch/wood and more perishable materials, Southeast and Southern Africa for stone and thatch/wood.

Cinema

Cinema of Africa refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Africa. It covers both the history and present of the making or screening of films on the African continent, and also refers to the persons involved in this form of audiovisual culture. It dates back to the late 19th century, when film reels were the primary cinematic technology in use. Cairo has been the capital of film industry in Africa since the early 20th century to the present day.

As there are more than 50 countries with audiovisual traditions, there is no one single 'African cinema'. Both historically and culturally, there are major regional differences between North African and sub-Saharan cinemas, and between the cinemas of different countries. The Egyptian film industry and the Tunisian are also among the oldest in the world. Cinema of Egypt in particular is the most established and flourishing industry in Africa. Pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière screened their films in Alexandria, Cairo, Tunis, Susa, Libya and Hammam-Lif, Tunisia in 1896. Albert Samama Chikly is often cited as the first producer of indigenous African cinema, screening his own short documentaries in the casino of Tunis as early as December 1905.

Music

The continent of Africa and its music is vast and highly diverse, with different regions and nations maintaining distinct musical traditions. African music includes genres such as makwaya, highlife, mbube, township music, jùjú, fuji, jaiva, afrobeat, afrofusion, mbalax, Congolese rumba, soukous, ndombolo, makossa, kizomba, and taarab, among others. African music also uses a wide variety of instruments from across the continent.

The music and dance traditions of the African diaspora, shaped to varying degrees by African musical traditions, include American genres such as Dixieland jazz, blues, and jazz, as well as Caribbean styles such as calypso (see kaiso), and soca. Latin American music genres including cumbia, salsa, son cubano, rumba, conga, bomba, samba, and zouk developed from the music of enslaved Africans and have, in turn, influenced contemporary African popular music.

Dance

African dance (also Afro dance, Afrodance and Afro-dance) refers to the various dance styles of sub-Saharan Africa. These dances are closely connected with the traditional rhythms and music traditions of the region. Music and dancing is an integral part of many traditional African societies. Songs and dances facilitate teaching and promoting social values, the celebration of special events and major life milestones, the performance of oral history and other recitations, and spiritual experiences. African dance uses the concepts of polyrhythm and total body articulation. African dances are often a collective activity performed in large groups, with significant interaction between dancers and onlookers.

Sports

Fifty-four African countries have football teams in the Confederation of African Football. Egypt has won the African Cup seven times, and a record-making three times in a row. Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, and Algeria have advanced to the knockout stage of recent FIFA World Cups. Morocco at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was the first African nation to reach the semi-finals of the FIFA Men's World Cup. South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup tournament, becoming the first African country to do so. The top clubs in each football league play the CAF Champions League, while lower-ranked clubs compete in CAF Confederation Cup.

In recent years, the continent has progressed in terms of state-of-the-art basketball facilities, which have been built in cities such as Cairo, Dakar, Johannesburg, Kigali, Luanda, and Rades. The number of African basketball players who drafted into the U.S. NBA experienced growth in the 2010s.

Cricket is popular in some nations. South Africa and Zimbabwe have Test status, while Kenya is the leading non-test team and previously had One-Day International cricket status (from 10 October 1997, until 30 January 2014). The three countries jointly hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Namibia also has played in a World Cup. Morocco hosted the 2002 Morocco Cup, but the national team has never qualified for a major tournament.

Rugby is popular in several southern African nations. Namibia and Zimbabwe have appeared on multiple occasions at the Rugby World Cup, while South Africa is the most successful national team at the Rugby World Cup, having won the tournament on four occasions, in 1995, 2007, 2019, and 2023.

Traditional sports were strictly marginalised during the colonial era, and many are dying or have gone extinct under the pressure of modernisation, however many remain popular despite not having formal governmental recognition or support. Some examples are Senegalese wrestling, Dambe, Nguni stick-fighting, and Savika.