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.

This map, developed by Chris Deckert and Storyrunners.com…, illustrates global literacy levels (using UNESCO data) and sets Bible translation needs within this context. For more information and additional maps, see www.storyrunners.com… and the World Mapping Project at www.worldmap.org…

This is a different form of map: a chronological scattergraph of the world’s countries measured by percent evangelized (E%, from the World Christian Encyclopedia). The colored bands represent the three categories: majority Christian (green), evangelized non-Christian (yellow) and majority unevangelized (red).
In 1900, many countries were deeply in the red section. Seventy years later, as a result of much evangelistic work, many of the countries had risen high in the red, and many had crossed into the yellow and green bands.

By 2005, only a handful of countries are less than 30% evangelized. Most are quite close to moving out of World A. Nevertheless, because of the tapering off of activity amongst the unevangelized, by 2025 it is likely that there will still be many countries in the unevangelized bands.

Reproduced with permission from The Joshua Project.

These maps, from UNEP & Columbia University, show the population densities of Africa. These are important facts to keep in mind, for these are the people we are trying to reach with the Gospel. The first map shows the overall population densities of Africa in the year 2000. The southern coast of Africa is one oft the most heavily populated regions on the continent. Only four other areas come close: the northwest coast, the Nile River in Egypt, middle Ethiopia, and the Rwanda/Burundi lake basin.

The next two maps show the change in population density in West Africa over the 40-year period from 1960 to 2000. The darker red areas represent a population density of nearly 500 people per square kilometer. Lighter yellow areas are densities of fewer than 10 per square kilometer (particularly in the desert belt in between the north and south). These population distributions have been fairly typical over the past two thousand years. The desert that kept Christianity in the north until the 15th century.

This second, wider chart illustrates pockets of population within the coastal areas. The northern band, for historical reasons, is more Islamic while the southern band is more Christian. Historically, this is influenced in part by the arrival of Islam from the north as well as the domination of Islamic empires (see the Chronology) as well as the entrance of colonial groups on the southern coast.

China has pledged to double its aid to Africa and expand bilateral trade to US$100 billion by 2010 as part of a multibillion-dollar package covering trade, investment, debt relief and personnel training. The wide-ranging aid package, unveiled by President Hu Jintao at the opening of the China-Africa summit, is aimed at forging closer links with the resource-rich continent and is expected to be delivered over the next three years. Mr Hu promised to increase aid to underdeveloped African nations, announcing that China would provide a basket of loans, debt relief and expertise in trade, infrastructure, education, training and the medical sector. Beijing plans to provide US$3 billion in preferential loans and US$2 billion in preferential credit to the continent in the next three years, while creating a US$5 billion fund to encourage Chinese investment there, he said. Beijing would also forgive more debt in the form of interest-free government loans owed by those poorest African countries that have diplomatic ties with China. To date, China has offered 10.9 billion yuan in debt relief to 31 African countries. Mr. Hu said China would further open up its market by increasing from 190 to 440 the number of African export items to China that have tariff-free import status. China will train 15,000 African professionals and double to 4,000 the number of scholarships given to African students by 2009. As part of the aid package, Beijing will also build 100 rural schools, 30 hospitals, 30 malaria treatment facilities, and a conference centre for the African Union, while sending agriculture experts and youth volunteers to Africa. Chinese trade with Africa totalled $40 billion last year and may reach $50 billion this year. Africa provides 30% of China’s oil, and China has invested in 27 major oil and natural gas oprojects—including in Sudan, Algeria, Angola and Nigeria. One side effect: nations which China has developed relations with have mostly dropped relations with Taiwan. This map illustrates the scope of just some of China’s initiatives in Africa.

These four maps graphically illustrate the spread of advanced technology into places unreached by Christianity. The first map, in the upper left hand corner, shows countries that generate a high value from biotech crops. The second, in the upper right, shows centers of digital technology innovation: no longer are they centered solely in the United States. The third map is of countries exploring stem cell research, with all of its ethical implications. The fourth and final map is the famed “Earth at night” map from NASA, which shows the spread of electricity. The maps are the work of a non-faculty employee of the University of Minnesota and available on the web, along with discussion, at mbbnet.umn.edu…. A few biotech centers that were newer than these maps were added.

This month’s global map looks at Global Goal 4: for every 2,000 Christians to send 1 cross-cultural missionary. To create this map, we took the total number of affiliated Christians (of all traditions) from the World Christian Database, and compared it with the number of missionaries (of all traditions) sent out (restricting ourselves to solely Protestant/Independent missionaries might be more useful to some, but that data wasn’t readily available).

The countries in green have “met” this goal: less than 2,000 Christians are required to send a missionary. For example, the USA sends 1 missionary per 1,700 believers. Yellow countries are slightly above the goal; with a little bit of mobilization work they could likely meet the goal. The UK, for example, sends an estimated 18,500 missionaries; another 1,000 would bring them to the goal.

Blue countries have burgeoning mission movements but still have a significant distance to go to meet the goal. India is an interesting case in that it mobilizes thousands of workers, but it is difficult to tell which cross-culturally and which work within their own or a very similar culture.

Finally, orange and red countries have comparatively little cross-cultural mission mobilization. (Again, these countries have many local workers but few that are sent cross-culturally to other tribes, nations and regions.) However, the good side of this is that most of those mobilized from within these regions go to unreached areas. Believers need to focus on breathing life, resources and energy into these “small candles.”