Geographic Diversity on the African Continent

AFRICA IN ANCIENT TIMES HIST 1301 | History Geographic Diversity on the African Continent Due to Africa's location in both the northern and southern hemisphere's equatorial and subtropical latitudes, it experiences a variety of climates, such as scorching deserts, icy glaciers, hot jungles, and verdant meadows. The majority of the continent is located in the tropical climate zone, between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, which gives rise to these disparate habitats. The only parts of it that are outside the tropical zone are the northern and southern borders. A region of moist, tropical country with intense rainfall occurs in the middle of Africa, spanning from Guinea in the northwest to portions of Mozambique in the southeast. This is where the tropical rainforest of Africa may be found, with its dense understory. The densest rainforest is located in the modern-day central state of the Democratic Republic of Congo, centred on the Congo River Basin. Because there is little gap between the trees in this area, the forest floor is heavily covered in layers of leaves that block out most sunlight. The second biggest rainforest in the world is found in the Congo, covering an area of over 386,000 square miles. In all, it receives sixty-three to seventy-eight inches of precipitation annually. The second-longest river in Africa, after the Nile, flows through the centre of the rainforest, the Congo River. These rivers' disparate geographic settings gave rise to remarkably diverse communities. For ages, Egyptian culture thrived because to the Nile River's consistent flood cycles. Because there were abundant food sources in the area, large towns and opulent architecture were common, and hieroglyphs still existed, providing a permanent and unmistakable record of significant historical events. In contrast, the Congo runs through a tropical region where thick woods gave rise to a completely different form of culture and where oral histories passed down through the generations replaced written records due to the damp climate. Because of this, even though both locations have a human past, we know a great deal more about one than the other. The tropical savanna and the monsoon region comprise the remainder of Africa's tropical belt. Tropical savannas, which are situated near the equator, are characterised by long grasses, few trees, and higher rainfall than temperate savannas. Seasonal wind variations in the monsoon area result in periods of precipitation and drought in certain areas of the interior of Central Africa and the West African coast. The towering stands of intricately stacked trees that define the rainforest give way to wooded patches and lush grasslands in the tropical savanna, where rainfall is significantly less. Another one of Africa's vast biomes is the savanna, a grassy plain. A biome is a group of plants and animals that have evolved to a certain environment. More people and history have lived on the savanna than any other region of Africa, which spans over half of the continent at a size of five million square miles. It is wetter than the desert but dryer than the rainforest, and it makes a dramatic geographic contrast to the desert and rainforest landscapes. It stretches from the warm and humid ranges of the rainforest to the arid zone of the Sahara. with contrast to such regions, the savanna landscape includes parts of swampy tropical regions, large stretches of grassy plains interspersed with trees, and mountains covered with snow. The Sahel, the tropical grassland savanna, and the forest savanna are the three consecutive belts that run east-west through the savanna, which is regarded by geographers as an area of transitions. The semiarid region between the Sahara and the grassland savannas to the south is called the Sahel, and it is the northernmost area. It receives rain only sporadically for six months of the year, making it the driest area in the savanna. Sahelian people have traditionally been seminomadic, meaning they have adapted a mixed agricultural method that includes both crop cultivation and livestock breeding and raising. The Sahelian soil is deficient in nutrients to support the growth of forests of trees, but it is abundant in the kind that allow plants to grow in gardens, support small-scale farming, and encourage the growth of abundant grasses for the grazing of larger animals, especially sheep and cattle. These herding animals also supply manure, a crucial component that aids African farmers in crop growth. The residents of the area effectively deal with the difficulties presented by their surroundings by using composting and manure. Due to its particular characteristics, homesteads tend to be smaller and more widely apart in order to support cattle, as well as limited cultivation. Numerous individuals in the area still lead seminomadic lives based on animal husbandry. As is often said about Africa, they do not cling to the past; instead, their way of life is still the most effective means of using the resources that their environment offers. In the south, the Sahel eventually gives place to a grassland savanna covered in short grasses and dotted with sporadic trees. In severe cases, this region may receive up to 48 inches of rain annually during the rainy season, which runs from May to October. The Serengeti is the most well-known of all of Africa's tropical savannas. The Serengeti, an incredibly diversified environment in northern Tanzania, is home to some of the greatest animal mass migrations in the world. For example, every January, around 1.75 million wildebeests leave the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which is located at the southernmost tip of the Serengeti, in search of food after the rainy season. These wildebeests travel in a clockwise manner towards the Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya, passing thousands of other species along route, such as gazelles and zebras, that came before them on their migration. Along the way, they come across a number of perils and challenges, such as rivers that are home to crocodiles and hippos, as well as other predators on land. Approximately 500,000 calves are born to the female wildebeests upon their arrival in Kenya. After months of grazing in the Masai Mara Reserve's savanna grasslands, their journey comes to an end in early November. The herds then go south as they make their way from Kenya back to northern Tanzania. The final belt dividing the tropical rainforest and the huge northern desert is the wooded savanna. Tall grasses that are sometimes broken up by straggler trees and gallery forest corridors along streams and rivers are its defining features. Nine months of the year see an abundance of rainfall in the area, where farmers raise root crops like yams and palm oil plants. Rainfall is unpredictable and increases with distance from Africa's tropical zone. The regions with tropical and temperate climates gradually give place to drier ones to the north and south of this area. As in other parts of the world, resource availability constraints have inevitably limited the rise and spread of civilizations in the more arid regions of Africa. Farming is not appropriate in areas with minimal rainfall or with no readily available water sources such as lakes, rivers, or subterranean aquifers. The absence of readily available water is a deterrent to human settlement since farming is the only activity that can sustain denser human populations. This helps to explain why several of the drier transitional zones between savanna and desert remain so sparsely inhabited and why no major civilizations developed in the more clearly dry regions of Africa, such as the Sahara and the Kalahari Desert. At the northernmost point of the savanna belt, the Sahel gives way to the desert. The driest and sunniest regions of the continent are the deserts. The Sahara is the biggest desert in Africa, if not the entire planet. The Sahara, which runs from the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, encompasses most of North Africa at 3.6 million square miles, or roughly the size of the United States (except from the rich coastal zones around the Mediterranean and the Nile delta). But the Sahara hasn't always been a huge desert. This area was lush, with weather akin to the monsoon, and it was home to pastoralists and huge herds of cattle during the time after the last Ice Age. Actually, Saharan rock art has the oldest evidence of cow domestication that has been found. However, there was a significant drying period in the area between 6000 and 2500 BCE, which caused the rainforest to recede and the desert to spread. The humans who lived in the formerly tropical zones had crises as a result of these changes since their traditional methods of hunting and gathering were no longer appropriate for the new surroundings. The contemporary Sahara was created as a result of this desertification; it gets less than one inch of precipitation annually, with certain sections receiving up to four inches, while other regions go decades without rain. The average high temperature during the day is 99°F, while the average low temperature at night is 68°F. However, during the warmer months of April through June, highs can reach as high as 120°F, while during the colder months of December through January, lows can drop below 37°F. There are very few plants that can withstand this harsh climate, and those that do depend on the water that gathers in dry riverbeds during the rare occasions of extreme rain. Oasis, or verdant pockets of civilization, are scattered across the Sahara's rough, rocky terrain, thousands-foot-tall sand dunes, and enormous mountain ranges with peaks as high as eleven thousand feet. Oasis are built around subterranean water sources that emerge as springs or wells. Despite making up just eight hundred square miles (or 0.02 percent of the desert's overall area), these oases are home to around three-quarters of the desert's population. The Tuareg and Teda people are among the remaining population of nomads. These peoples work in a variety of fields, including farming and herding, but only very limited amounts of time. For example, pasture is limited to marginal places like the western mountain borders and the somewhat wetter areas; these are the boundaries that control the herders' nomadic way of existence. Even though the Sahara is the most well-known desert in Africa, there are other desert regions as well. These include the Namib and the Kalahari Desert, which are located in the continent's far southwest, as well as a desert region in the African Horn, which roughly corresponds to Somalia, Ethiopia, and northern Kenya. Possibly the most fascinating counterpoint to the Sahara's extremes is the Kalahari Desert. The Kalahari is a 350,000 square mile semiarid sandy grassland. It crosses virtually all of Botswana and runs south from present-day Namibia into the Northern Cape region of South Africa. It is sometimes described to as the southern African version of the Sahel. It also reaches deep into the country's interior veld, or grassland. The sand dunes of the Kalahari are significantly smaller than those of the Sahara; they are at least a mile long and several hundred feet wide, with a height of twenty to two hundred feet. In addition, the area is notable for its many "dry lakes" or pans, which are remnants of a wetter era in the area's past. Climate-wise, certain areas of the northern Kalahari still receive more than ten inches of rain annually, making them less than "deserts." They do not, however, contain surface water. When it rains, the water immediately percolates through the thick sands, depleting the soil of all moisture. In the Kalahari, precipitation is extremely erratic and mostly determined by weather patterns impacted by the Indian Ocean. The southern edge of the desert receives fewer than five inches of rain annually, although the northeastern portion receives quite copious rainfall. Severe thunderstorms, which frequently erupt out of nowhere and create intense downpours that drench the entire area, are accompanied by this rainfall. Nevertheless, the area has little rainfall for six to eight months out of the year. Thus, except from a few drought-tolerant plants and bushes, there is not much biologically to differentiate the southwestern region beyond flat sand plains. Conversely, the middle Kalahari has more rainfall and is peppered with sporadic grasses, bushes, and trees. The northernmost portion of the Kalahari appears to be a completely other biome, complete with forests, woods, and palm palms, at its most severe. The Mediterranean climate, which is the last major climate in Africa, is limited to the coastal areas of South Africa and Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in the north and on the southernmost edges of the continent. The regions are perfect for producing olive trees, cereal grains, and grapes—the so-called Mediterranean trio of crops that adorn the landscapes of both—because of their moderate, wet winters, dry summers with reduced humidity (compared to the tropical belt), and temperate summers. The average daily high temperature is 77°F, while the average nighttime low is around 60°F. These are nice temps. There are several regional climates in Africa, each with unique local differences. East Africa, comprising Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, is a region that crosses the equator. The highlands and mountains have considerably colder temperatures than the coast and the area surrounding Lake Victoria, which is hot and muggy. The region receives exceptionally high levels of rainfall in several places. For example, the tropical region surrounding Lake Victoria and the coastal islands can receive up to 59% of their annual precipitation from rain. Because of the effect of the eastern desert, the Ethiopian highlands form an area with a drier climate to the north. Locally, Africa's many microclimates reflect the remarkable diversity of ecosystems that exist there and to which humans have adapted over millennia, while also belying the continent's vast regional climatic trends. Additionally, a startling array of fauna has adapted to these conditions. Africa's savannas are home to a variety of big grazing animals, such as gazelles, wildebeests, elephants, ostriches, and zebras, due to the amount of grasses that they consume as food. The savanna frequently hosts large herds of these creatures, none more beautiful than the East African wildebeests during their yearly migration. The sub-Saharan savanna is home to one of the highest concentrations of giraffes, elephants, hippopotamuses, and rhinoceroses on the continent, despite their widespread distribution throughout modern-day Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia in the interior of south-central and east Africa.