Natural factors such as terrain rivers and sunlight influence the construction of settlements at both regional and local levels. This gives settlements certain characteristics of distribution scale hierarchy and morphology. In what ways has geography affected settlement patterns in North Africa?
Full Answer
What are the characteristics of African settlements?
These settlements — built up areas comprising human communities in a village, town, or city — were located near land most favorably suited to subsistence cereal farming and to the trans-Saharan trade routes, the region’s main source of wealth in the past (Moriconi-Ebrard, Harre, and Heinrigs, 2016).
Which countries have the highest settlement growth rates in Africa?
Looking at each country individually, Mauritania and Burkina Faso stand out with the highest settlement growth rates, with an average of 23 and 7.7 percent per year, respectively. Mauritania’s high settlement growth rate can be explained by the very rapid urbanization of the capital Nouakchott following independence (see Nouakchott case study ).
How does the geography of the land affect culture?
The geography of the land plays a significant role in the migration patterns of people, and as such, their cultural habits. Africa and the Middle East exemplify the ways in which natural boundaries can enable or prevent cultural diffusion between different groups in a particular region. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
What is the geography of Africa?
Africas physical geography, environment and resources, and human geography can be considered separately. Africa has eight major physical regions: the Sahara, the Sahel, the Ethiopian Highlands, the savanna, the Swahili Coast, the rain forest, the African Great Lakes, and Southern Africa. Some of these regions cover large bands of the continent, ...
What are geographical features found in North Africa?
Geography. North Africa has three main geographic features: the Sahara desert in the south, the Atlas Mountains in the west, and the Nile River and delta in the east. The Atlas Mountains extend across much of northern Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.
How has geography impacted Africa?
The geography of the land plays a significant role in the migration patterns of people, and as such, their cultural habits. Africa and the Middle East exemplify the ways in which natural boundaries can enable or prevent cultural diffusion between different groups in a particular region.
What major geographic feature covers most of North Africa?
The Sahara is the worlds largest hot desert, covering 8.5 million square kilometers (3.3 million square miles), about the size of the South American country of Brazil. Defining Africa's northern bulge, the Sahara makes up 25 percent of the continent.
How did geographic features affect movement in Africa?
What geographic features limited movement in Africa and what made them obstacles? The terrain of the rain forest and desert made these areas hard to cross, while the high plateau in the interior and the river cataracts made movement between regions difficult.
How did geography influence the settlement and economy of early Africa?
Geography of the region shaped the way of life of the people living there. The people in the forests could grow taro, yams, and kola and trade it for gold and sold. The people in the desert could move herds of cattle, sheep, and goats to find food and water.
What are the four main geographic zones of Africa?
Landforms Ecologically separated from North Africa by the sweeping and sparsely populated Sahara Desert, the sub-Saharan mainland consists of four vast and distinct regions: Central Africa, East Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa.
What is the climate and geography of North Africa?
Climate, Water, and Resources Coastal North Africa has a Mediterranean climate, with hot summers and mild, damp winters. Along the Atlas chain, the mountains trap moisture-laden clouds blowing south from the Mediterranean Sea. The moisture falls as rain on the mountains' northern slopes.
What is the major landform of North Africa?
The Sahara Desert is the major landform in northern Africa. It is the largest desert in the world and consumes nearly a third of the entire continent, occupying an area that is as large as the United States. The desert runs from the Atlas Mountains in the west to the Red Sea in the east.
What are some environmental issues in North Africa?
North Africa is expected to face increasing temperatures, droughts, and decreasing and/or varying levels of rainfall and groundwater levels.
What role did geography play in the development of Africa?
Geography played an enormous role in sculpting the ancient civilizations of Africa. It was the Nile River, and its enormous annual flooding, which paved the way for widespread agriculture and complex civilization to thrive in Egypt.
In what way did geography affect early African kingdoms?
How did geography affect early African kingdoms? Natural resources brought wealth and power. What is the main reason Europe colonized Africa?
How did the outside influences led to change in North Africa?
How did outside influences lead to change in North Africa? The Romans built dams, aqueducts, and roads across North Africa. Arab armies carried Islam into North Africa, and camels from Africa helped trade become more efficent and allowed trade to cross the desert.
How did geography impact life in West Africa?
Geography and Trade Geography was a major factor in the development of West African societies. Settled communities grew south of the Sahara, where the land permitted farming. Geography also influenced trading patterns. Communities traded with one another for items they could not produce locally.
What is the geography of Africa?
Africa is the most tropical of all continents. Climate and vegetation range from equatorial rainforests, tropical deserts and savanna grassland to Mediterranean. The Sahara Desert, the largest of its kind anywhere in the world, is over 10.4 million km2 n North to south is approx. 1800 kms and east-west is 5600km.
How did geography influence the societies in East Africa?
The Kingdoms and Empires of East Africa were greatly influenced by their location and geographical resources. Placed between the trade kingdoms of India and the Middle East, many towns grew large and wealthy due to these routes and the monsoon winds, which brought boats and traders to and from India.
How is Africa geographically and culturally diverse?
The most important thing to know is that Africa is not a country; it's a continent of 54 countries that are diverse culturally and geographically. It's so diverse because Africa is really, really big — about as big as the combined landmasses of China, the United States, India, Japan and much of Europe.
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in what ways has geography affected settlement patterns in North Africa?
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How does Western Europe's physical geography affect its settlement patterns, economy, and culture? I've looked in the lesson and on google. But all of the websites that look like they might help are blocked. Can someone help, please? I don't need the
What are the factors that influence the development of North Africa?
Geographic factors, especially the availability of water, have influenced settlement in the subregion. Because water is scarce, people have for centuries settled along seacoasts and rivers. The Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts and the Nile River valley hold most of the sub-region's people. The Nile River valley is one of the world's most densely populated areas. Other population centers in North Africa include Casablanca, Tunis, Tripoli, and Cairo. Egypt's most populous city and its capital, Cairo, dominated the country's social and cultural life. Cities have grown rapidly as people migrate from rural areas in search of a better life. Cities face problems providing services because growth has occurred quickly.
Why did Jews migrate to Palestine?
Due to cultural and historic ties, Jews migrated to Palestine rather than Jordan, Lebanon, or Syria, resulting in disputed claims.
How much land was settled in West Africa between 1975 and 2013?
Land use maps show that settled or built-up areas increased by 140 percent in West Africa between 1975 and 2013 — to occupy 36,400 sq km by 2013 (0.7 percent of the land surface).
What has happened to West Africa in the past 50 years?
In the past 50 years, West Africa has been experiencing intensive urbanization, which has affected the region’s largest and smallest urban centers (Cour and Snrech, 1998). In 1975, the distribution and pattern of West Africa’s settlements were little changed compared to their historical size and extent. These settlements — built up areas comprising ...
Where are the most urbanized countries in West Africa?
In this coastal corridor, population has grown fast and population density is the highest in the West African region. With the exception of the small countries of The Gambia and Cabo Verde where settlements are concentrated in one large metropolis, the Gulf of Guinea countries are the most urbanized in the region, with settlements occupying between 1 percent (Benin) and 2 percent (Nigeria) of their national territory in 2013 (see graph). In the western part of the Atlantic coast, some areas remain relatively underpopulated and also under- urbanized. The prolonged political uprisings and conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as the Casamance conflict in Senegal, still hinder trade and the movement of people (Moriconi-Ebrard, Harre, and Heinrigs, 2016). During these conflicts, economic growth and infrastructure development were impeded, and part of the population migrated not only toward rural areas but also to neighboring countries (especially Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire). In the recent decade (2000–2013), settlements have greatly expanded along several axes perpendicular to the coastline — inwards from the coast, such as Dakar–Touba, Accra–Kumasi, or Lagos–Ibadan, and also following the major north-south routes, such as Maradi–Kano, and Abijdan–Ouagadougou. In the landlocked Sahel countries, large cities are sparser but new clusters and major regional hubs, such as Bamako and Ouagadougou, have emerged. Many new settlements also appeared along the major rivers in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad. Because these countries have important agricultural resources to meet the growing demands of the regional market (cereals, fruits and vegetables, intensive livestock farming), the long east-west corridor from N’Djamena to Dakar constitutes a strategic area for regional trade and a very dynamic region for population flow and settlement in West Africa (Konseiga, 2005). Recent migration flows have been observed toward western Burkina Faso, a phenomenon that is accelerated by the success of cotton production and the urbanization of secondary cities, such as Bobo-Dioulasso.
Where are the cities in West Africa?
Across the region, numerous towns have grown into large urban centers or secondary towns like Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso), Bouaké (Côte d’Ivoire), Touba (Senegal), Kumasi (Ghana), and several large cities in Nigeria. The number of small agglomerations has also multiplied spectacularly across the region.
How has geography affected migration?
This lesson explained how geography has affected the migration of groups and cultures throughout Africa and the Middle East. We saw how geography is very commonly a primary reason for connections between groups, as culture is easily able to pass down a river, along a shoreline, or through a trade route. This was seen with the spread of Islam in the Middle East, the spread of Swahili and Bantu in Africa, and the spread of the Arabic language in the Middle East.
Why is Arabic common in North Africa?
This is because the Sahara Desert was an effective barrier for culture. It's part of the reason we often talk about North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa as if they are completely different places. In fact, the only African country to speak Arabic that doesn't border the Mediterranean Sea is Sudan, and it had the Nile River to make it easy for Arabic to be passed along from Egypt.
What geography blocks cultural advancement?
This was especially true of the mountains and highlands of the Ethiopian and Iranian Plateaus, but also common in isolating the Bedouin of the Arabian Desert.
How did geography help spread Middle Eastern culture?
Geography also worked to help spread Middle Eastern culture. More than 5,000 years ago, the relatively flat terrain of Mesopotamia allowed for a unified culture to exist, even where states were vastly different and often in opposition to one another. Also, it is interesting to note that the most unifying aspect of Arab culture, the Arabic language, only thrived when spread largely over flat areas. The Taurus Mountains and the Iranian Plateau helped to stop Arabic's expansion to the east and north, while it was unchecked in North Africa due to the flatness of the land.
Why is Swahili spread up and down the coast?
Why is that? Simply put, the coast was a channel for conveying culture. Swahili was spread up and down the coast because these coastal merchant towns had more in common with each other than they had with the inland reaches of East Africa. As a result, they shared their languages until they melded into what we today call Swahili.
Which landform kept a civilization largely safe from outside influences?
Speaking of plateaus, remember the Iranian Plateau that I mentioned earlier? The one that kept Arabic out but let Islam in? Just like the Ethiopian Plateau, that landform also kept a civilization largely safe from outside influences - the Persian civilization. Despite being crucial to the development of Islam, Persian culture predates the religion by thousands of years. Safe atop its plateau, it was only conquered three times - once by Alexander the Great, again by Islam, and finally by the Mongols. Each time, Persian culture seeped out to overtake the invader. It would not have been so strong had it not had such a secure cultural homeland.
Where does culture move?
This is very apparent in the Middle East and in Africa, where culture could be easily transmitted in some directions but utterly stopped in many others.
Availability of Water
- the area with enough water attracts more people to settle in those areas compared to arid or dry areas. For example, places such as Rungwe in Mbeya which has plenty of water have high growth of settlement while areas such as Longido which is arid has a low growth rate of settlement
Availability of Land For Agricultural Activities
- The areas which have fertile land attract people to settle there while infertile land makes people move away from it. For example areas along the Kilimanjaro slope which is fertile due to volcanic soil have high growth of settlement compared to areas such as Mpwapwa which is infertile due to soil erosion which low growth rate
Relief of The Area
- people prefer areas that have gentle slopes and tend to avoid settling in areas which have steep slopes due to difficulties in establishing infrastructure and thin soil found in the steep slopes. Also, people tend to avoid settling in flat areas susceptible to flooding. For in Katumba Songwe in Kyela people avoid settling due to floods from the river Kiwira
Availability of Social Services
- people prefer to live in areas that have social services such as education, water, and electricity and avoid settling in areas that lack social services. For example, many rural areas in the African continent low settlement growth rate due to lack of social services while urban areas such as Dar es salaam have a high settlement growth rate due to the abundance of social service
Government Policy
- government can affect the growth of settlement by forcing people to settle in a certain area or persuade people to settle in a certain area by supplying social services and other incentives. Also, government policy affects settlement growth through town and land use planning. For example, there has been a rapid growth of settlement in the kinyerezi area on the outskirt of Dar …