Sub-Saharan Africa

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Image:Africa satellite orthographic.jpgSub-Saharan Africa, Africa south of the Sahara, is the term used to describe those countries of Africa that are not considered part of North Africa or some areas of West Africa. In 19th Century Europe and the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa commonly was known as Black Africa or as Dark Africa, partly due to the skin color of its indigenous inhabitants and partly because much of it had not been fully mapped or explored by Westerners (Africa as a whole was sometimes labeled "the dark continent"). These terms are now obsolete and often considered to be offensive. The neutral phrase African Uplands was preferred by Hegel and some other writers of the time; however, this was primarily intended to refer to the African interior as opposed to coastal regions.

Since the end of the last Ice Age, the northern and sub-Saharan regions of Africa have been separated by the extremely harsh climate of the sparsely populated Sahara, forming an effective barrier interrupted by only the Nile River. The modern term sub-Saharan corresponds with the standard representation of North as above and South as below. Tropical Africa is an alternative modern label, related to the word Afrotropic, used for the distinctive ecology of the region. However, if strictly applied, this term would exclude South Africa, most of which lies outside the Tropics.

With a few exceptions, such as Mauritius and South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa is, like the rest of Africa, one of the poorest regions in the world, still suffering from the legacies of colonial conquest and occupation, neocolonialism, inter-ethnic conflict, and political strife. The region contains many of the least developed countries in the world. (See Economy of Africa.)

1 Nations of sub-Saharan Africa
2 External links

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Nations of sub-Saharan Africa

The exact position of the dividing line between the two regions is not clearly defined because of discontinuous and blurred break-points between national boundaries, ecologies and ethnicities. However, according to one classification of the two regions, sub-Saharan Africa includes forty-eight nations. Forty-two of these nations are on the African mainland. In addition, four island nations in the southwest Indian Ocean (Madagascar, The Comoros, Mauritius, and Seychelles) and two island nations in the Atlantic Ocean (Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe) are considered part of sub-Saharan Africa. According to this classification scheme, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa are:

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