North Africa (sometimesNorthern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of theAfrican continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of theWestern Sahara in the west, to Egypt and Sudan'sRed Sea coast in the east.[5]
North Africa has three main geographic features: theSahara desert in the south, theAtlas Mountains in the west, and theNile River and delta in the east. TheAtlas Mountains extend across much of northernAlgeria,Morocco, andTunisia. These mountains are part of thefold mountain system that also runs through much ofSouthern Europe. They recede to the south and east, becoming asteppe landscape before meeting the Sahara desert, which covers more than 75 percent of the region. The tallest peaks are in theHigh Atlas range in south-central Morocco, which has many snow-capped peaks.
South of the Atlas Mountains is the dry and barren expanse of the Sahara desert, the largest sanddesert in the world.[13] In places thedesert is cut by irregular watercourses calledwadis—streams that flow only after rainfall but are usually dry. The Sahara's major landforms includeergs, large seas of sand that sometimes form into hugedunes; thehammada, a level rockyplateau without soil or sand; and thereg, adesert pavement. The Sahara covers the southern part of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, and most of Libya. Only two regions of Libya are outside the desert:Tripolitania in the northwest andCyrenaica in the northeast. Most of Egypt is also desert, with the exception of the Nile River and the irrigated land along its banks. The Nile Valley forms a narrow fertile thread that runs along the length of the country.
Sheltered valleys in the Atlas Mountains, the Nile Valley andDelta, and the Mediterranean coast are the main sources of fertile farming land. A wide variety of valuable crops including cereals, rice and cotton, and woods such ascedar andcork, are grown. Typical Mediterranean crops, such as olives, figs, dates and citrus fruits, also thrive in these areas. The Nile Valley is particularly fertile and most of Egypt lives close to the river. Elsewhere, irrigation is essential to improve crop yields on the desert margins.
The inhabitants of North Africa are roughly divided in a manner corresponding to the principal geographic regions of North Africa: theMaghreb, theNile valley, and theSahel. The countries making up North Africa all haveModern Standard Arabic as their official language. Additionally, Algeria and Morocco recognizeBerber as a second official language after Arabic. French also serves as an administrative language in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The most spoken dialects areMaghrebi Arabic, a form of ancient Arabic dating back from the 8th century AD, andEgyptian Arabic. The largest and most numerous ethnic group in North Africa are theArabs.[14] In Algeria and Morocco,Berbers are the second largest ethnic group after the Arab majority. Arabs constitute 70%[15] to 80%[16] of the population of Algeria, 92%[17] 97%[18] of Libya, 67%[19] to 70%[20] of Morocco and 98%[21] of Tunisia's population. The Berbers comprise 20%[16] of Algeria, 10%[22] of Libya, 35%[23] of Morocco and 1%[24] of Tunisia's population. The region is predominantlyMuslim with aJewish minority inMorocco andTunisia,[25] and significant Christian minority—theCopts—inEgypt,Algeria,[26][27] Morocco,[28] Libya,[29] and Tunisia.[30] In 2001, the number of Christians in North Africa was estimated at 9 million, the majority of whom live in Egypt, with the remainder live inMaghreb countries.[31][32]
The inhabitants of the SpanishCanary Islands are of mixed Spanish and North African Berber ancestry, and the people ofMalta are of primarily Southern Italian/Sicilian, as well as, to a lesser extent, North African and Middle Eastern ancestry[33][34][35] and speak aderivative of Arabic. However, these areas are not generally considered part of North Africa, but rather Southern Europe, due to their proximity to mainland Europe and their European-based cultures and religion.
The Maghreb or western North Africa on the whole is believed to have been inhabited byBerbers and their ancestors since at least 10,000 B.C.,[36] while the eastern part of North Africa or theNile Valley has mainly been home to theEgyptians andNubians. Ancient Egyptians record extensive contact in their Western desert with people that appear to have been Berber or proto-Berber. As theTassili n'Ajjer and other rock art findings in the Sahara have shown, theSahara also hosted various populations before its rapiddesertification in 3500 B.C and even today continues to host small populations ofnomadic trans-Saharan peoples. Laboratory examination of theUan Muhuggiagchild mummy and Tin Hanakaten child, suggested that the Central Saharan peoples from theEpipaleolithic,Mesolithic, andPastoral periods possessed dark skin complexions.[37] The archaeological evidence from the Holocene period has shown thatNilo-Saharan speaking groups had populated the central and southern Sahara before the influx ofBerber andArabic speakers, around 1500 years ago, who now largely populate the Sahara in the modern era.[38]
Aftermigrating to North Africa in the 1st millennium BC,SemiticPhoenician settlers from theLevant established over 300 coastal colonies throughout the region and built apowerful empire that controlled most of the region from the 8th century BC until the middle of the 2nd century BC.[39]
Several waves ofArab migrations to the Maghreb began in the 7th century, including the migration of theBanu Hilal and theBanu Sulaym westward into the Maghreb in the eleventh century, which introduced Arab culture and language to the countryside. Historians mark their movement as a critical moment in the Arabization of North Africa.[40] As Arab nomads spread, the territories of the local Berber tribes were moved and shrank. TheZenata were pushed to the west and theKabyles were pushed to the north. The Berbers took refuge in the mountains whereas the plains were Arabized.[41] This heavily shifted the demographics of the Maghreb.
Thetrans-Saharan slave trade resulted in increased levels of sub-Saharan African ancestry in North Africa.[42] TheHaratin are commonly perceived as an endogamous group of formerslaves or descendants of slaves.[43]
DNA studies ofIberomaurusian peoples atTaforalt, Morocco dating to around 15,000 years ago have found them to have a distinctive Maghrebi ancestry formed from a mixture ofNear Eastern and African ancestry, which is still found as a part of the genome of modern Northwest Africans.[44] Later during theNeolithic, from around 7,500 years ago onwards, there was a migration into Northwest Africa ofEuropean Neolithic Farmers from the Iberian Peninsula (who had originated inAnatolia several thousand years prior), as well as pastoralists from theLevant, both of whom also significantly contributed to the ancestry of modern Northwest Africans.[45] Theproto-Berber tribes evolved from these prehistoric communities during the lateBronze- and earlyIron ages.[46]
The majority of the people of the Maghreb and the Sahara regions speakvarieties of Arabic and almost exclusively follow Islam. The Arabic and Berber languages are distantly related, both being members of theAfroasiatic language family. TheTuareg Berber languages are notably more conservative[clarification needed] than those of the coastal cities.
Over the years, Berbers have been influenced by contact with other cultures:Egyptians,Greeks,Punic people,Romans,Vandals,Arabs,Europeans, andAfricans. The cultures of the Maghreb and the Sahara therefore combines Arab, indigenous Berber and African elements. In the Sahara, the distinction between sedentaryoasis inhabitants and nomadicBedouin Arabs andTuaregs is particularly marked.
The Maghreb formerly had a significant Jewish population, almost all of whom emigrated to France orIsrael when the North African nations gained independence. Prior to the modern establishment of Israel, there were about 500,000 Jews in Northern Africa,[48] including bothSephardi Jews (refugees from Spain, France and Portugal from the Renaissance era) as well as indigenousMizrahi Jews. Today, less than 3,000 remain in the region, almost all in Morocco and Tunisia,[49] and are mostly part of a French-speaking urban elite. (SeeJewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.)
Vegetation and water bodies in earlyHolocene (top), between about 12,000 and 7,000 years ago, andEemian (bottom)
Due to therecent African origin of modern humans, the history of Prehistoric North Africa is important to the understanding of pre-hominid and early modern human history in Africa.Some researchers have postulated that North Africa rather thanEast Africa served as the exit point for the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent in theOut of Africa migration.[50][51][52]
Recent finds in Jebel Irhoud in Morocco have been found to contain some of the oldestHomo sapiens remains; This suggests that, rather than arising only inEast Africa around 200,000 years ago, earlyHomo sapiens may already have been present across the length of Africa 100,000 years earlier. According to study author Jean-Jacques Hublin, "The idea is that earlyHomo sapiens dispersed around the continent and elements of human modernity appeared in different places, and so different parts of Africa contributed to the emergence of what we call modern humans today."[56] Early humans may have comprised a large, interbreeding population dispersed across Africa whose spread was facilitated by a wetter climate that created a "green Sahara", around 330,000 to 300,000 years ago. The rise of modern humans may thus have taken place on a continental scale rather than being confined to a particular corner of Africa.[57] In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260CT scans, of a virtualskull shape of the last common human ancestor tomodern humans/H. sapiens, representative of the earliest modern humans, and suggested that modern humans arose between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago through a merging of populations inEast andSouthern Africa.[58][59]
Thecave paintings found atTassili n'Ajjer, north of Tamanrasset, Algeria, and at other locations depict vibrant and vivid scenes of everyday life in central North Africa during theNeolithic Subpluvial period (about 8000 to 4000 BCE). Some parts of North Africa began to participate in the Neolithic revolution in the 6th millennium BCE, just before the rapid desertification of the Sahara around 3500 B.C. largely due to a tilt in the Earth's orbit.[60] It was during this period that domesticated plants and animals were introduced in the region, spreading from the north and east to the southwest.[61] There has been an inferred connection between areas of rapid drying and the introduction of livestock in which the natural (orbital) aridification was amplified by the spread of shrubs and open land due to grazing.[62] Nevertheless, changes in northern Africa's ecology after 3500 BCE provided the backdrop for the formation of dynastic civilizations and the construction of monumental architecture such as thePyramids of Giza.[63]
Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the LatePleistocene era and from the 5th millennium BC onwards, whereas there is "no or scanty evidence" of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation.[64] Several scholars have argued that the African origins of the Egyptian civilisation derived from pastoral communities which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese regions of the Nile Valley in the fifth millennium BCE.[65][66]
When Egypt entered the Bronze Age,[67] the Maghreb remained focused on small-scale subsistence in small, highly mobile groups.[68] SomePhoenician andGreek colonies were established along the Mediterranean coast during the 7th century BCE.
The most notable nations of antiquity in western North Africa areCarthage,Numidia andMauretania. The Phoenicians colonized much of North Africa including Carthage and parts of present-day Morocco (includingChellah,Essaouira andVolubilis[69]). The Carthaginians were ofPhoenician origin, with the Roman myth of their origin being thatDido, a Phoenician princess, was granted land by a local ruler based on how much land she could cover with a piece of cowhide. She ingeniously devised a method to extend the cowhide to a high proportion, thus gaining a large territory. She was also rejected by theTrojan princeAeneas according toVirgil, thus creating a historical enmity between Carthage andRome, as Aeneas would eventually lay the foundations for Rome. TheCarthaginian Empire was a commercial power and had a strong navy, but relied on mercenaries for land soldiers. The Carthaginians developed an empire in theIberian Peninsula,Malta,Sardinia,Corsica and northwestSicily, the latter being the cause ofFirst Punic War with theRomans.
Over a hundred years and more, all Carthaginian territory was eventually conquered by the Romans, resulting in the Carthaginian North African territories becoming theRoman province of Africa in 146 B.C.[70] This led to tension and eventuallyconflict betweenNumidia and Rome. The Numidian wars are notable for launching the careers of bothGaius Marius, andSulla, and stretching the constitutional burden of the Roman republic as Marius required a professional army, something previously contrary to Roman values, to overcome the talentedmilitary leaderJugurtha.[71] Kingdom ofMauretania remained independent until being annexed to the Roman Empire by EmperorClaudius in 42 AD.
North Africa remained a part of the Roman Empire, producing notable citizens, includingAugustine of Hippo, until incompetent leadership from Roman commanders in the early fifth century allowed theGermanic peoples, theVandals, to cross theStrait of Gibraltar, whereupon they overcame the fickle Roman defense. The loss of North Africa is considered a pinnacle point in the fall of the Western Roman Empire as Africa had previously been an important grain province that maintained Roman prosperity despite the barbarian incursions, and the wealth required to create new armies. The issue of regaining North Africa became paramount to the Western Empire, but was frustrated by Vandal victories. The focus of Roman energy had to be on the emerging threat of theHuns. In 468 AD, the Romans made one last serious attempt to invade North Africa but were repelled. This perhaps marks the point of terminal decline for theWestern Roman Empire.
The Kabyle people were incredibly resistible so much so that even during the Arab conquest of North Africa they still had control and possession over their mountains.[77][78]
Theearly Muslim conquests included North Africa by 640. By 700, most of North Africa had come under Muslim rule. Indigenous Berbers subsequently started to form their own polities in response in places such asFez andSijilmasa. In the eleventh century, a reformist movement made up of members that called themselves theAlmoravid dynasty expanded south intoSub-Saharan Africa.
North Africa's populous and flourishing civilization collapsed after exhausting its resources in internal fighting and suffering devastation from the invasion of theBanu Sulaym andBanu Hilal. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert.[80]
Comparison of North Africa in the years 1880 and 1913
After theMiddle Ages much of the area was loosely under the control of theOttoman Empire. TheBarbary pirates operated from the largely independentBarbary states located on the coast of North Africa. TheSpanish Empire conquered several coastal cities between the 16th and 18th centuries. After the 19th century, the imperial and colonial presence ofFrance,the United Kingdom,Spain andItaly left the entirety of the region under one form of European occupation.
The wider protest movement known as theArab Spring began with revolutions inTunisia andEgypt which ultimately led to the overthrow of their governments, as well ascivil war in Libya. Large protests also occurred in Algeria and Morocco to a lesser extent. Many hundreds died in the uprisings.[81]
^Malcolm, Peter; Losleben, Elizabeth (2004).Libya. Marshall Cavendish.ISBN978-0-7614-1702-6.Archived from the original on 10 April 2023. Retrieved30 January 2023.
^Juang, Richard M.; Morrissette, Noelle (2008).Africa and the Americas [3 Volumes]: Culture, Politics, and History. UK: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 929–930.ISBN978-0-521-88952-0.
^Juergensmeyer, Mark (2008).The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 317.ISBN978-0-19-976764-9.
^Genetic Origin of Contemporary Maltese People. 5 August 2007.Repopulation is likely to have occurred by a clan or clans (possibly of Arab or Arab-like speaking people) from neighbouring Sicily and Calabria. Possibly, they could have mixed with minute numbers of residual inhabitants, with a constant input of immigrants from neighbouring countries and later, even from afar. There seems to be little input from North Africa.
^Geoffrey Hull,The Malta Language Question: A Case Study in Cultural Imperialism, Valletta: Said International, 1993, pp. 317–330. Scientific etymologies of the longest-established Maltese family names are given in Geoffrey Hull, "The Oldest Maltese Surnames: A Window on Sicily's Medieval History", in Claudia Karagoz and Giovanna Summerfield (eds),Sicily and the Mediterranean: Migration, Exchange, Reinvention, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 78–108; "Late Medieval Maltese Surnames of Arabic and Greek Origin",Symposia Melitensia No. 11 (2015), pp. 129–143
^Genetic Origin of Contemporary Maltese People. 5 August 2007.Together with colleagues from other institutions across the Mediterranean and in collaboration with the group led by David Goldstein at the University College, London, we have shown that the contemporary males of Malta most likely originated from Southern Italy, including Sicily and up to Calabria. There is a minuscule amount of input from the Eastern Mediterranean with genetic affinity to Christian Lebanon....We documented clustering of the Maltese markers with those of Sicilians and Calabrians. The study is published in the Annals of Human Genetics by C. Capelli, N. Redhead, N. Novelletto, L. Terrenato, P. Malaspina, Z. Poulli, G. Lefranc, A. Megarbane, V. Delague, V. Romano, F. Cali, V.F. Pascali, M. Fellous, A.E. Felice, and D.B. Goldstein; "Population Structure in the Mediterranean Basin; A Y Chromosome Perspective", AHG, 69, 1–20, 2005..
^Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates (2010).Encyclopedia of Africa. Oxford University Press. p. 549.ISBN978-0-19-533770-9., Quote: "Haratine. Social caste in several northwestern African countries consisting of blacks, many of whom are former slaves (...)"
^Mário Curtis Giordani,História da África. Anterior aos descobrimentos. Editora Vozes, Petrópolis (Brasil) 1985, pp. 42f., 77f. Giordani references Bousquet,Les Berbères (Paris 1961).
^"Who are Egypt's Coptic Christians?". CNN. 10 April 2017.The largest Christian community in the Middle East, Coptic Christians make up the majority of Egypt's roughly 9 million Christians. About 1 million more Coptic Christians are spread across Africa, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, according to the World Council of Churches.
^Gatto, Maria (2015). "Holocene supra-regional environmental changes as trigger for major socio-cultural processes in northeastern Africa and the Sahara".African Archaeological Review.32 (2):301–333.doi:10.1007/s10437-015-9191-x.S2CID126834892.
^Barker, Graema (2005). "Agriculture, Pastoralism, and Mediterranean Landscapes in Prehistory".The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory. pp. 46–76.doi:10.1002/9780470773536.ch3.ISBN978-0-470-77353-6.
1Entirely claimed by both Morocco and theSADR.2Spanish exclaves claimed by Morocco.3Portuguese archipelago claimed by Spain.4Disputed between Egypt and the Sudan.5Unclaimed territory located between Egypt and the Sudan.6Disputed between South Sudan and the Sudan.7Part of Chad, formerly claimed by Libya.8Disputed between Morocco and Spain
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