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Southern Africa

Regional Study Guide

Countries of the Region

» Angola» Zambia» Malawi» Mozambique» Zimbabwe» Botswana» Namibia» South Africa» Lesotho» Swaziland

Topography

» Coastal Plain: Stretching inland from the Indian Ocean are coastal plains comprised of sloping, flat, and gently rolling landscapes.

» High Land: This spine-like chain of mountains runs the entire length of the southern African region just west of the eastern coastal plain. These mountains often reach the height of 10,000 feet.

Topography

» High Plateau/High Veldt: The most dominant physical feature in southern Africa is the high plateau, known locally as the high veldt. It comprises more than ¾ of the region’s area

» Western Coastal Plain: A narrow coastal plain borders the Atlantic Ocean along the west coast of southern Africa. Unlike the east coastal plain that is quite fertile, the western coastal plain is barren.

Topographic map of the regionYou should color your map so that it shows the 4 different types of landscape. Use the map above as a reference.

Vegetation MapThe information on this map should correspond to the shading in your topography map.

Colonialism

» Cecil Rhodes was a British industrialist and major champion of British colonialism.

» He made an enormous fortune on the diamond mines of this region and was instrumental in colonizing much of this region, mostly to take advantage of the mineral wealth of the area.

» Rhodesia was named after him and he set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship.

» This is the Colossusof Rhodes, an ancientstatue of the Greek god Helios on the island of Rhodes. Itwas one of the 7Wonders of the Ancient world.

The Rhodes ColossusDo you get it?

The ancient statue was destroyed by an earthquake in 226, so no one really knows what it looked like. People in the Middle Ages believed the 2 legs of the ancient statue were astride the harbor at Rhodes. This political cartoon is based on that belief. Instead of bestriding a harbor, what is Cecil Rhodes standing over?

Bantu Migration

Bantu people knew how to grow crops and mine minerals to make iron tools.

Bantu Migration Routes

Great Zimbabwe

» Read the supplements on the Great Zimbabwe and try to sketch what you think it looked like.

» Work with a partner; each partner should have a sketch.

Language

» Zambia has 10 million people.» There are 70 distinct languages.» South Africa has 11 official languages.» Between 15 and 23 million people speak

Afrikaans.

Religion

» There is a great diversity in religion.» Indigenous religions and Christianity have the

most followers in the region.

What do people do all day?

» Most people living in rural areas make their living in some type of agriculture.

Mineral ResourcesConflict resources are natural resources extracted in a conflict zone and sold to make money to keep fighting. The biggest source of conflict resources is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where lots of minerals are mined that eventually find their way into consumer electronic devices. Blood diamonds are another conflict resource. Note the location of diamond mines in the map above.

A diamond mine in Kimberly, South Africa

This diamond mine is in Sierra Leone, in West Africa

What do you notice about these “miners.”

Apartheid

» One of the provisions of apartheid is that black Africans were forced to live in substandard areas of South Africa’s cities, often in areas called “townships.”

» Soweto is a scrunched-up version of “South Western Township,” an area in Johannesburg near the gold mines where many blacks worked in the old days.

Soweto Uprising

» When the National Party gained power in 1948 & began apartheid, many blacks were forcibly removed from places they lived and forced into government-designated townships.

» In 1976, the Soweto Uprising began as mass protests over a government policy to enforce education in Afrikaans rather than English.

» 23 people died on the first day of the uprising.

Divest!

» Soweto continued to be the center of popular resistance, especially in the 1980s.

» People from all over the world championed the cause of apartheid protestors.

» In our own town, students build a shantytown on Francis Quadrangle to try to convince UMC to divest – remove any investments that directly or indirectly supported the racist government of South Africa.

Mandela & the ANC

» Nelson Mandela was an anti-apartheid revolutionary.

» He served as President of South Africa from 1994-1999. He was South Africa’s first black chief executive.

» He was also President of the African National Congress from 1991-1997.

» Prior to becoming president, he had served 27 years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the state.