Throughout human history there have been movements of peoples (see human migration) within, into, and out of Africa along its northern coasts, across the Sinai Peninsula, along the Red Sea, and especially in the Horn of Africa and coastal areas as far south as Southern Africa. North Africa from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Nile River delta has been the site of conquests and movements of peoples for thousands of years. Along the east coast, trading cities arose and fell, cities that had overseas contacts during the past two millennia with peoples of southern Arabia and as far east as India and Indonesia. Internal movements during that time contributed to the heterogeneity and complexity of native African societies. The greatest movement of peoples out of the continent was a result of the Atlantic slave trade that lasted from the 16th to the 19th century and involved the transport of an estimated 10,000,000 people to the New World. Such a loss of people, together with the devastating warfare and raiding associated with it, was the major cause of the subsequent weakness and decline of African societies.
Whereas the majority of Africa’s peoples are indigenous, European colonial settlers constitute the largest majority of new peoples, with substantial numbers in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, and Mozambique. Dutch settlers first arrived in South Africa in 1652; their descendants now constitute the main Afrikaner, or Boer, population. The vast majority of European settlers arrived after the 1885 Berlin West Africa Conference and the resulting “scramble for Africa,” during which European leaders carved out spheres of influence. Attendant, but unassociated, with the scramble, French and Italian settlers also established new communities in North Africa and, to some extent, western Africa. Much earlier, in several waves of migrations beginning in the 7th century, Arabs spread across northern Africa and, to a lesser extent, into western Africa, bringing a new religion (Islam) and a new language (Arabic), along with some new cultural and political institutions. They also spread Islam southward along the east coast, largely through trading and kinship relationships. (More detail is given in the regional history articles North Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, Western Africa, and Eastern Africa.) The colonial era began to disintegrate in the 1950s.
Culture areas
Although the precise number is unknown, there are several thousand different societies or ethnic groups in Africa. They are identified by their recognition of a common culture, language, religion, and history. But in some areas the boundaries among ethnic groups and communities (villages, towns, farm areas) may not always be clear to the outsider. Most Africans speak more than one language, and frequent migrations and interactions, including intermarriage, with other peoples have often blurred ethnic distinctions. There are an estimated 900 to 1,500 different languages, but many distinct political units share a common or similar language (as among the Yoruba, Hausa, and Swahili-speaking peoples). Complicating the situation in the 20th century was the creation of new “tribes” (such as the Zande [Azande] and Luo) that had not been distinct polities before the colonial era. Ethnic (cultural) identities in modern times have often been heightened, exacerbated, or muted for political reasons.
In their attempts to comprehend such a huge heterogeneous continent, scholars have often tried to divide it into culture areas that represent important geographical and ecological circumstances. Those areas reflect differences in the cultural adaptation of traditional societies to varying natural habitats. For the purposes of this discussion, the principal regions are northern, western, west-central, eastern, and Central and Southern Africa; Madagascar is also included.
Northern Africa
Africa north of the Sahara is differentiated from the rest of the continent by its Mediterranean climate and by its long history of political and cultural contacts with peoples outside of Africa. It is physically separated from the rest of the continent by the Atlas Mountains and is inhabited primarily by peoples who speak languages that belong to the Afro-Asiatic group. Those peoples include, for example, the Imazighen (Berbers) of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The Berbers are most numerous in Morocco and least in Tunisia, where, as a result of culture contact and intermarriage, they have become largely assimilated with Arabs, who speak a Semitic language. The Arabs migrated into North Africa from Arabia in a number of waves; the first of those waves occurred in the 7th century CE. The distinctive nature of Maghrebian, or western Arab, culture resulted from that admixture. In the Sahara such Arab peoples as the Shuwa live side by side with such Berber peoples as the Tuareg. See also Islamic world.
