The Tribes of Africa

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Posted by Justin Long ⋅ July 12, 2008 ⋅

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Westerners often find themselves thinking in terms of nations and states, so we talk about Rwanda, or South Africa, or Zimbabwe, or Egypt, or Sudan. But there are two other layers of equal importance: tribes and cities. This post is a series of links to tribal maps.

1700s - http://www.gracegalleries.com/Africa_Listings.htm – a collection of rare maps of Africa including some from 1690s, 1730s, 1780s, more.

1839 - http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/A/AFR/1839-africa-map.jpg – low resolution scan, a bit hard to see

1850 - http://www.daveblumenkrantz.com/images/africa/kenya_shaka_africa_map.jpg – this map is reportedly from 1850, although it cannot be seen close enough to get much detail, but it too is remarkably like the maps from the 1920s.

1885 - http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/africa_1885.jpg – this is an interesting map in that it is almost a transition from ethnicity to national borders – or is this in fact a map of national borders as they stood in 1885? There is no key, so difficult to tell.

1920s - http://students.philau.edu/LANSHE2/Africa/map/images/tribal.gif

1922 - http://www.britishempire.co.uk/images3/africa1922map.jpg, but this one illustrating European possessions. Note how close this map is to the previous one.

1980s - http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/thematic.html – a collection of thematic maps on ethnography and religion including several of Africa.