There are about 45 different countries and territories in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is about 20% of all the countries in the world. The major regions of Sub-Saharan Africa include: West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa and the island of Madagascar.
West Africa
West Africa is the region lying south of the Sahara Desert and bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It is geographically divided into two distinct subregions, each of which has distinct environmental and cultural characteristics. The first region con- sists of countries in the Sahel region that border the semi-arid environment along the southern Sahara Desert. These countries include:
Burkina Faso Cape Verde Chad The Gambia Mali Mauritania Niger Senegal
The second region consists of countries that line the Atlantic Ocean on the humid and tropical Guinean Coast. These countries include:
Benin Cameroon Cote d ’ Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Equatorial Guinea Ghana Guinea
Guinea-Bissau Liberia Nigeria Sierra Leone Togo
The Niger River flows through much of the region, although numerous smaller riv- ers flow from the interior highlands to the ocean. The Guinean Coast, in the southern portions of this region, is a humid tropical rainforest that receives year-round pre- cipitation. Mangrove swamps are common along the coast near the mouths of rivers.
Rainfall decreases considerably as one moves northward toward the Sahara Desert.
Some countries span both the humid and arid regions of West Africa. Nigeria, for example, is both the wealthiest country in West Africa (due to its large coastal oil reserves) and the most populated country on the African continent. Political tensions between Nigeria ’s more Muslim north and more Christian south, however, have been
a contributing factor in the country ’s political instability and continuing individual poverty. (West Africa is sometimes referred to as Western Africa to avoid confusion with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is some- times shortened toWest Africa. ECOWAS is a political and economic association that does not include all of the countries listed above. We use the term West Africa in here because its more general definition is widely used outside of the region.
West Africa is among the less visited international destination regions of the world.
Nigeria receives the most international visitors, due to its large population and eco- nomic importance. Senegal (769,000 international visitors in 2005) is the second most visited country in West Africa. This designation, however, may reflect the fact that The Gambia is surrounded on three sides by Senegal, and cross-border travel between the two countries constitutes international travel. The Gambia has also seen rapid tourism growth in recent years. Ghana is the third most visited country in West Africa (584,000 in 2004), especially for English-speaking tourists, followed by Cote d ’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Nigeria and Ghana are English-speaking countries, while in Senegal and Code d ’Ivoire French is the official language. Despite the region ’s tropical climate and diversity of cultural groups (from interior nomads to coastal agriculturalists and urban settlers), it is the colonial history that forms the basis of Western Africa ’s inter- national tourism today.
Western Africa was the principal source of slaves brought to the Americas between the 16th and early 19th centuries. The slave trade from Africa resulted in the wide- spread (forced) migration of people from their African homelands to many other parts of the world. Today this African diaspora has significant implications for tourism, primary of which is a large and growing worldwide desire among people of African descent to visit the land of their ancestors. This form of tourism is sometimes referred to as existential tourism, defined as travel to a place that holds special meaning for the tourist ’s personal identity. Existential tourism by diasporic populations is wide- spread today as international transportation has become easier and both voluntary and forced migrations have become commonplace.
Because of its historical role, as dark as that may be, international tourists of African descent have become an extremely important tourist market for Western Africa. This is especially so for tourists who come from regions with higher stand- ards of living, levels of education, and better paying jobs, such as in North America, Europe, and the Caribbean. Many travel agencies and tour operators in the United States, for example, have started to specialize in ancestral travel to Africa, particu- larly in cities with large African-American populations, such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington DC, San Francisco, Atlanta and Miami. These agencies arrange international trips for African-Americans, typically selling them as going home or motherland tours.
Ghana has a high concentration of slave-related visitor attractions and is the second most important international tourist destination in Western Africa, receiving 584,000 visitors in 2005. Because of its British colonial history, it is the primary destination of choice in Western Africa for African-American and African-British tourists because it has a higher likelihood of being the origin of many slaves from Western Africa who were brought to the English-speaking countries of the Americas. In addition, the widespread use of English as the country ’s lingua franca, makes Ghana an easy place to visit for American and British tourists. With this realization, Ghana has focused considerable attention on diaspora tourism, and its current 15-year National Tourism
Development Plan (1996–2010) places slave heritage at the center of the country ’s tourism development efforts.
Also related to the historical slave trade of Western Africa, UNESCO has put con- siderable effort into developing and designating a Slave Route through the region.
The purpose of the Slave Route is to conserve, commemorate and educate the world about the atrocities associated with the slave trade. However, the UNESCO designa- tion, which is similar to the designation of a World Heritage Site, also adds to the tourist appeal of the region and is a good example of multi-national cooperation in developing a large-scale tourist route.
East Africa
East Africa includes the area known as the Horn of Africa, which contains the countries of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. East Africa also includes the coastal countries of Kenya and Tanzania, and the East African Rift countries of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. The Horn of Africa, along with Rwanda and Burundi, have been the site of some of the most troubling political instability on the African continent in recent years. The lack of a central governing authority in Somalia occa- sionally spills over into the tourist regions of neighboring countries, while Uganda has the longest running civil war on the African continent. Despite these challenges, East Africa is the second most visited region in Sub-Saharan Africa, after Southern Africa.
The East African Rift System winds its way from north to south through East Africa, forming its western boundary in the south. It is here that the famous lakes of Victoria, Albert, Tanganyika and Nyasa (Malawi) are found, along with some of the most fertile lands on the African continent. The area has a very complex ethnic makeup, with many different languages and language groups, along with a large number of Europeans who were attracted to the agricultural potential during the colonial period, and the remnants of the Arab Empire that once ruled a large part of East Africa.
Kenya is the most visited country in East Africa (1.2 million international visitors in 2004), and one of the third most visited countries in all of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tanzania and Uganda each receive about a half million international visitors a year.
Safari tourism, to see big game animals in the wild, forms the basis of tourism in East Africa. In Kenya there are 60 designated wildlife protection areas, which are divided into parks that are administered and financed by the country ’s central government, and reserves that are set aside by local authorities, though they are partially financed and administered by the central government. In total, between 6% and 12% of Kenya’s land area is protected in these ways. (The land area varies as the boundaries of the protected areas fluctuate from year to year according to management needs.)
A goal of many safari tourists is to see the Big Five animals. The term was origi- nally coined by big-game hunters to designate the five most difficult animals to hunt, but now is used by big-game tourists with their cameras. The Big Five include the lion, the African elephant, the African buffalo (or Cape buffalo in South Africa), the leopard and the black rhinoceros. While these animals are also among the most dangerous in Africa, the list does not include the hippopotamus, which is possibly the most dangerous animal when it is in water. Wildebeests, gazelles and zebras are among the other big game animals that are distinctive to the safari lands of East Africa and Southern Africa.
Tanzania is home to Mount Kilimanjaro (although part of it lies in Kenya), the Ngorongoro, and the Serengeti and had, prior to the 1970s, been in direct competi- tion with Kenya for leadership in safari tourism in East Africa. However, the country fell behind during two decades of ineffective government policies. Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa (19,340 ft; 5,895 m). It is an inactive stratovolcano that is geologically related to the Great Rift Valley, and although it is famous for its snow-capped peak, the current trend in global warming is making that a scene from the past. The Nogorongoro Conservation Area is in the Great Rift Valley, and Serengeti National Park is located on the plains adjacent to this in the northern part of Tanzania. The Serengeti is also home to the Maasai people and is famous for being home to an estimate 1.5 million large game herbivores and predators.
The Great Rift Valley in East Africa has created a series of large lakes that are known collectively as the Great Lakes of Africa. The most famous of these are Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. Lake Victoria (or Victoria Nyanza) is the world ’s sec- ond largest freshwater lake, and the largest lake located in a tropical region of the