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West Africa

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West Africa

The coast is largely tropical, and a belt of tropical forest once followed the coast through most of this area. North and inland from this area, the land opens into savanna, then the Sahel. Map of Africa with the western countries highlighted
Map of Africa with the western countries highlighted

Nations in this area (with the former colonial powers that controlled them), bordering the Atlantic, from northwest to southeast are:

  • Benin, formerly Dahomey (France)
  • Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) (France)
  • The Gambia; along the Gambia River, enclosed in Senegal (United Kingdom)
  • Ghana (United Kingdom)
  • Guinea (France)
  • Guinea-Bissau (Portugal)
  • Liberia
  • Mauritania (France)
  • Nigeria (United Kingdom)
  • Senegal (France)
  • Sierra Leone (United Kingdom)
  • Togo (Germany, France)

Interior countries include:

  • Burkina Faso (France)
  • Chad (France)
  • Mali (France)
  • Niger (France)

In addition, Saint Helena, a territory of the United Kingdom, is lumped in.

Sometimes Cameroon is considered a part of West Africa.

Colonial boundaries as reflected in the modern boundaries between contemporary West African nations, cut across ethnic and cultural lines, often dividing single ethnic groups between two or more countries.

History

Historically, the area was home to several major African empires, including the Mali Empire, Songhai Empire, and the Ghana Empire. It was one of the world's great civilized regions, with the great city of Timbuktu being one of the most important centers of trade and learning in the Old World. Prosperous and culturally active states thrived in West Africa for many centuries, although a variety of forces including the slave trade and climactic change in West Africa led to these states' gradual decline.

Prehistory

Archaeological studies at Mejiro Cave have found that early human settlers, probably related to the Pygmies, had arrived in West Africa around 12,000 BCE. Microlithic stone industries have been found primarily in the region of the Savannah where fairly advanced pastoral tribes existed using chiseled stone blades and spears. The tribesmen of Guinea and the forested regions of the coast were without microliths for thousands of years, but prospered using bone tools and other means. In the fifth millennium, as the ancestors of modern West Africans began entering the area, the development of sedentary farming began to take place in West Africa, with evidences of domesticated cattle having been found for this period, along with limited cereal crops. Around 3,000 BCE, a major change began to take place in West African society, with microliths becoming more common in the Sahel region, with the invention of primitive harpoons and fish-hooks.

A major migration of Sahel cattle farmers took place in the third millennium BCE, and the pastoralists encountered the developed hunter-gatherers of the Guinea region. Flint was considerably more available there and made the use of microliths in hunting far easier. The migration of the Sahel farmers was likely caused by the final desiccation of the Sahara desert in this millennium, which contributed greatly to West Africa's isolation from cultural and technological phenomena in Europe and the Mediterranean Coast of Africa. Nevertheless, the increased use of iron and the spread of ironworking technology led to improved weaponry and enabled farmers to expand agricultural productivity and produce surplus crops, which together supported the growth of urban city-states into empires.

By 400 BCE, contact had been made with the Mediterranean civilizations, including that of Carthage, and a regular trade in gold being conducted with the Sahara Berbers, as noted by Herodotus. The trade was fairly small until the camel was introduced, with Mediterranean goods being found in pits as far south as Northern Nigeria. A profitable trade had developed by which West Africans exported gold, cotton cloth, metal ornaments, and leather goods north across the trans-Saharan trade routes, in exchange for copper, horses, salt, textiles, and beads.

Miscellaneous

A notably tall building in West Africa is the 2 Fevrier Sofitel Hotel in Lomé, Togo.

Related entries: * Dappa * [Wikipedia entry for West Africa], from which this was drawn