The urbanization of most of Africa is moving fast forward, especially south of the Sahara.[1] It is estimated that in 1900, about 89% of inhabitants lived from the primary occupations of farming, hunting & gathering, cattle nomadism, and fishing (Aase, 2003:1) meaning that 11% or less were urban. At the start of the independence period in 1957, 14.7% of Africa's inhabitants were urban, in 2000 had it risen to 37.2% and it is expected to rise to 49.3% in 2015, in effect 3.76% to 3.35% per year (UN, 2002). In sub-Saharan Africa in 1960 "only one city, Johannesburg, had a population of one million;...in 2009, there were fifty-two cities with such large populations."[2] The Nigerian city of Lagos that in 1963 had 665,000 inhabitants (Rakodi, 1997) and 8.7 million in 2000 is expected to become the world's 11th biggest city by 2015 with 16 million inhabitants (UN, 2002).
A replica of a wattle and daub house at the Etowah Indian Mounds
The process of urbanization required some initial conditions to be met before the process could begin.[3] The purpose of towns was to support the labor of those who were not in agriculture, whether that be craftsmen, priests, traders, landlords, etc.[3] According to Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, there are three conditions needed for urbanization to begin.[3] First, there must be a food surplus to feed those who are not employed in agriculture.[3] Second, there must be a ruling class that facilitates the movement of this food surplus from those who create it to those living within the city.[3] Finally, there must be merchants and traders to supply this new working class with the materials necessary to accomplish their work.[3] The structure of many African cities is quite different from the normal western city, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa but also in the Nile Valley The structure of the city did not include stone structures, and if they did, it was sparsely in the city center.[4] This kind of city was called a "Giant Village," and it allowed the city to move when resources became depleted. Most of the structures built were made of wattle and daub, often even the chiefs quarters.[4] These "Giant Village's" were characterized by very low population density and very large cities in area; at most, they had up to 50,000 people living in these cities.[4]
In pre-colonial Africa,[where?] young men would often challenge the authority of their elders.[5][pageneeded] This could often times create tension between the ethnic groups and a constant struggle for who has authority over one another.[5][pageneeded] Constant struggle in this manner doesn't allow for growth and innovation.[5][pageneeded]
Nile Valley
Aerial view of the Pyramids in Meroe Sudan
The earliest known cities of Africa emerged around the Nile Valley. Alexandria was founded in Egypt in 331 BC and is famous for the lighthouse Pharos, for a legendary library, and for the martyrdom of Hypatia of Alexandria.[6] While more Ancient Greekpapyri were preserved in the sands of Egypt than anywhere else in the ancient world, relatively few from Alexandria still remain.[7] There were also many early cities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Meroe (present-day Sudan) was one of the major cities in the Kushkingdom.[8] For several centuries after the sacking of Napata in 590 BC, the Meroitic kingdom developed independently of Egypt, reaching its height in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.[9] Meroe advanced in iron technology,[10] and building construction dates back to at least 900 BC.[11] Meroe was a great center of agriculture at its height.[12]
Africa north of the Sahara has long had political and cultural contact with people outside of Africa.[1] It is physically separated from the rest of the continent as well, making for quite a difference between the people in North Africa and the rest of the continent.[1] North Africa and the Nile Valley urbanized rapidly compared to the rest of Africa, and this exposure to other cultures had a large impact on growth.[13]
West Africa
Several Historical Yoruba Cities In South West current day Nigeria
Between AD 700 to 1600, cities in the West Africansavanna emerged from the trans-Saharan trade. Some of the more prominent were Kumbi Saleh, Timbuktu, Djenné and Gao. Arabic scholars like Ibn Khaldun have been a very important source of historical accounts from this area and period. Gold mining, iron technology, pottery making and textile production were the important technologies. In the commercial and capital center of Ghana Empire (not present Ghana) Kumbi Saleh an elaborate economic system including taxation was developed. The growth and strength of the 3 kingdoms of Mali, Ghana, and Songhai can be attributed to their fertile and easily farmable environment. This allowed them to create a surplus of rice, as well as their long-distance trade of salt and gold.[4]
In the West African forest region, cities developed among the Yoruba, Fulani, Hausa people as well as in the Ashanti Empire and Benin kingdom. As well as being commercial and political centers they worked as spiritual centers. One of the largest cities in the region was Old Oyo, a "Great Village" with an area of 5252.5 ha, and an estimated population of 100,000.[4]
Central Africa
The Bansa, or residence of the King of Kongo, called St. Salvador (M'Banza Kongo), Astley 1745
In the central African equatorial region cities could be found in what is today Congo, DR Congo, Angola, Zambia, Rwanda and Burundi. In what is now DR Congo, Musumba was the capital city of Lunda.[14] In the Mangbetu Kingdom districts changed their structure to fit the need of the kingdom.[15] There is evidence of equal dispersion of villages of equal sizes transforming into larger clumped villages in times of war or when trade route were diverted through the village and then reverted back when those times have passed back to equally dispersed villages of equal sizes. [15]
The Ethiopian Empire amassed a large number of trade networks and acquired western goods as a result. Although Ethiopia had these successful trade networks, limits to urbanization were closely connected to societal limits on surplus accumulation. Cities were forced to remain small, with an average population typically not exceeding 2000 to 4000 inhabitants.[3]
Axum, capital of the Ethiopian kingdom lasted from the first century AD until about the 10th century AD. It had an extensive trade network with the RomanMediterranean, south Arabia and India, trading ivory, precious metals, clothing and spices. Axumian stone artwork (monoliths has been preserved, and bear proof of their advances in quarrying, stone carving, terracing, building construction and irrigation.
Coastal East Africa
The lack of fertile ground in East Africa is made up for with its vast access to the sea and its resources, with limited available land cities had to be compact and with the creation of two storied houses it shows evidence of a more scarce land market than other regions.[4]
Many of these cities were likely closely interrelated with one another, especially when looking at historical Swahili culture villages and settlements.[3]
Technological developments included coin minting, copper works, building craftsmanship, boat building, cotton textile. External trade was very active and important with Asia and Arabia.
Southern Africa
City Center of Great Zimbabwe, one of the more famous cities in Southern Africa.
Stone-built ruins are numerous and widely spread in southern Africa.[3] Zimbabwe testifies to an urban Shona civilization that left many ruins, even showing evidence for complex agriculture.[3] Many of these structures were cattle enclosures carbon dated all the way back to 1000 AD, the number of these structures suggested a very dense population.[16]Great Zimbabwe is one of the more famous pre-colonial cities of Africa. Its Great Enclosure is considered the largest single prehistoric structure in Africa. The earliest inhabitants of the Angola area are believed to have been Khoisanhunter-gatherers whose remains date back to the Old Stone Age.[3]
This (1947) Map of Africa shows what territories were held by Europe in Colonial Africa
With the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 as a foundation, Africa was apportioned among the European powers. In 1914 only Ethiopia and Liberia were left as independent states, the remainder of the continent was under British, French, Portuguese, German, Belgian, Italian or Spanish control. It was the interest of these powers that governed the borders. The continent had almost no urban population and the colonial powers had not started to invest much in its «pieces» (Hernæs, 2003a). A good example is Northern Nigeria Protectorate that in 1900 had a budget of £100,000, a military force of 2000 Hausa-soldiers and 120 British Army officers. With this they were to govern an enormous area with a population of about 10 million people.
The economic and administrative politics had the greatest effect on urbanization. The important export products cash crops (including cotton, maize, tobacco, sugar, coffee, tea, palm oil, and groundnuts) and minerals had to be transported to the harbour towns for export. For this railway transport was needed, and to run the colony administration and personnel was needed. The central administration was often placed in harbour town, but there was not developed any network of small and middle-sized cities (Aase, 2003:3).
A strong centralised political system was also important in the development of early urban centres for example in the Ndebele Kingdom under Mzilikazi and later on Lobengula
Some cities were used and some were ignored. Close to the main lines of transportation the cities grew, while towns that were ignored by transportation and administration in effect disappeared, as for example Kukawa and Dahomey.
It was in the cities of transportation and administration that contact with government and commerce was possible. As a consequence it was invested in these cities leading to the need of workforce. The commercial politics of raw inputs exporting to finance the colony and develop Africa governed the way what cities that should grow.
At the same time the colonial powers became aware of the problems that urbanization brought with it. The rural-urban migration pulled labour away from the countryside where the important export products were made. The Africans usually lived in small spaces and under poor sanitary conditions. They were therefore prone to illnesses like malaria. One of the colonial governments' response was to separate Europeans, Asians and Africans from each other and establish influx control laws. In South Africa this resulted in the official policy of apartheid from 1950. This was also a policy that was especially common in settler cities like Harare, Lusaka and Nairobi.
With the Great Depression in the 1930s, prices of African export products dropped. This in turn led to an economic downturn and unemployment. The mining workforce before the depression had been mostly temporary or seasonal, often also forced labour. The workers therefore lived in mining cities away from home and their families in the countryside.
From the 1920s in Belgian Congo and from the 1940s in South Africa and South and North Rhodesia the mining companies started to prefer more permanent workers. The authorities changed their policies to facilitate the change, and after a while also moved the working men's families into the cities. The new policies tried to strengthen the authorities' control over land and city growth, and make life easier for the European administration.
The effect of the apartheid and similar policies can be illustrated by comparing urban growth rate in Southern Africa, with that of the rest of Africa in the 1950s. This also illustrates that the policy was not working or not effective in the other colonies: The urban growth rate of Southern Africa was about 3.3%, compared to about 4.6% for the whole of Africa.
As the economy grew, the cities also grew. The colonial authorities started to strengthen the development policies that had suffered because of the 1930s depression. Social services, especially primary schools, but also secondary schools, and in the end of the colonial period also a few universities were built. Important infrastructure such as harbours, electricity grid and roads was further developed. All this caused growing administration, growing exports and growing cities, that grew even more in the post colonial period.
World War II caused considerable urbanization and industrialization in the Union of South Africa and led to large numbers of non-whites migrating to cities to seek work in factories. This trend led to increasing dissent against the white minority's racial segregation policies and housing shortages, with many blacks barred from entering cities because of pass laws living in squatter camps such as Soweto. The ruling United Party under Jan Smuts issued the Fagan Report recommending easing of segregation as a solution to the tensions, while the opposition Herenigde Nasionale Party under J. B. M. Hertzog and D. F. Malan issued the Sauer Report recommending the opposite solution of intensified segregation. The HNP won the 1948 South African general election and subsequently implemented these policies as apartheid.[17]
Postcolonial period
Most of today's African countries gained their formal independence in the 1960s. The new countries seemed to have a great faith in planned economy regardless of how they gained their independence. The government should actively develop the country, not only by building infrastructure and developing social services; but also by developing industry and employment. Many parastatal companies are today left as 'white elephants' and demonstrate the great investments that were made in the cities at the beginning of the post-colonial period (Rakodi, 1997).
For many reasons it was thought that centralisation equalled a strong (powerful) state (government). The reasons could be
the wish to induce a feeling of nationhood, which also led to the establishment of brand new capitals (to be mentioned later);
a lack of qualified government officers; someone had to do the work that the colonial officers had done, but in some places these people simply did not exist;
the fear that local authorities would turn against central authorities. (Rakodi, 1997).
Centralization meant that companies had even more reason to establish themselves in the already large capitals because this was closest to power. In effect this led to a huge concentration of investment in urban areas. For example, in Nigeria where 80% of investments not related to agriculture was spent in urban areas (Rakodi, 1997).
New cities were also established in the post-colonial period, but not for the same reasons as in the colonial period. The seaport Tema in Ghana was built awaiting great industrial growth. Later, new capitals were built, inspired by the planned city of Brasília in Brazil. This happened in Malawi (Lilongwe), Côte d'Ivoire (Yamoussoukro) and Nigeria (Abuja) (Stock, 1995). The new capitals were meant to give the nation a 'fresh start', they were supposed to be the beginning of a new golden future promised by the liberation politicians.
As none of the new capitals have grown to more than about half a million inhabitants, they have probably not had much influence on the growth of the already established cities. Tema could be said to be a success as it is the most important port today, and together with Accra represent the biggest metropolitan area in Ghana (The World Bank Group, 2001; UN, 2003b; Obeng-Odoom, 2013).
At the same time as influx-control regulations were intensified in South Africa, this kind of regulation was weakened in the newly liberated countries. This led to more rural-urbanmigration in the newly liberated countries (Rakodi, 1997), and a stable decline in urbanization growth from 1950 to 1990 in South Africa. From figure 1 one can see that after the end of apartheid in 1990, the urbanization rate grow from 2.29% to 3.41%, while it continues to sink in the rest of Africa. The abandonment of the influx-control regulations in 1986 is a part of this picture. The city of Bloemfontein grew 51% between 1988 and 1996. (The Ministry of the Flemish Government, 2001).
Country / Region
1950–1955
1955–1960
1960–1965
1965–1970
1970–1975
1975–1980
1980–1985
1985–1990
1990–1995
1995–2000
2000–2005
Africa
4.50
4.63
4.85
4.68
4.37
4.45
4.38
4.26
4.16
3.91
3.76
Eastern Africa
5.57
5.77
6.08
6.07
6.28
6.56
5.36
5.56
5.31
5.10
4.70
Southern Africa
3.21
3.32
3.00
3.03
2.82
2.64
2.73
2.63
3.50
3.15
2.13
South Africa
3.14
3.23
2.88
2.90
2.66
2.46
2.49
2.29
3.41
3.13
2.09
Figure 1: Average yearly urbanization growth as%. From: World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision, FN 2002. Eastern Africa is included because it is the region with the most urbanization growth after 1950. All numbers are estimated, and especially the ones for 2000–2005 are therefore uncertain
Influx control regulation was active in South Africa until 1986–90, while in the rest of Africa they were more or less abandoned or without effect. However, even the remnants of these regulations could have an effect on how the cities grew, since they made it difficult to get hold of legally owned land. This again led to the illegitimate occupation of land.
One reason for people wanting to move from rural to urban areas is that they think living will be better there. A comparison between HDI rank and urbanization level in Africa could show that there might be some sense in this belief. The five African countries that in 2001 ranked highest on the United NationsHuman Development Index was also some of the most urbanised, see figure 2.
Country
HDI value
% urban population
Libya
0.783
88.0
Tunisia
0.740
66.2
Algeria
0.704
57.7
South Africa
0.684
57.7
Equatorial Guinea
0.664
49.3
Figure 2: Numbers from UNDP, 2003: "Human Development Index" and the UN "World Urbanization Prospects, the 2001 Revision“. The HDI value is calculated from each countries education level, life expectancy at birth and GDP per capita (PPP US$). The countries are ranked by HDI value.
In some countries rural inhabitants have been given even more reasons to migrate to the city by lower food prices in the cities, often because of pressure from trade unions. This in turn has led to lowered income in rural areas and therefore higher migration to urban areas. (Rakodi, 1997; Aase, 2003).
Finally it should be mentioned that war and economic misconduct have led to the dilution of rural resources and periodically very high rural-urban migration. At the end of the 1980s, there were only 18 African countries that had not experienced a military coup against their government (Rakodi, 1997).(Written by Josiah Naidoo).
The urbanization rate in Africa is slowing, but so is the population growth rate, much because of HIV/AIDS (UN, 2003a). The big cities of Africa will probably continue to grow, but the future is as always uncertain. In 1994 it was expected that Lagos would become the world's third biggest city with 24.4 million inhabitants by 2015 (Todaro, 1997), but in 2001 this was adjusted to the world's eleventh biggest city with 'only' 16 million inhabitants (UN, 2002). This shows how uncertain the numbers are, and how unpredictable the African population development is.
It is evident that like in the rest of the world, the African urbanization process has mainly been influenced by economy. The colonial powers placed ports, railways and mines to economically strategic places. The cities have both in colonial and post-colonial times been economically prioritized. People came to these places for nationalistic pride, work, administration, education and social services. The exception is South Africa who, with its strict influx control regime and apartheid policy, to a certain degree managed to control urban growth. It is nonetheless one of the most urbanized countries of Africa and now has a low urbanization growth.
A city is a human settlement of a notable size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agreed definition of the lower boundary for their size. In a narrower sense, a city can be defined as a permanent and densely populated place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations, and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving the efficiency of goods and service distribution.
Sub-Saharan Africa, Subsahara, or Non-Mediterranean Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African countries and territories that are situated fully in that specified region, the term may also include polities that only have part of their territory located in that region, per the definition of the United Nations (UN). This is considered a non-standardized geographical region with the number of countries included varying from 46 to 48 depending on the organization describing the region. The African Union (AU) uses a different regional breakdown, recognizing all 55 member states on the continent—grouping them into five distinct and standard regions.
Bamako is the capital and largest city of Mali, with a 2022 population of 4,227,569. It is located on the Niger River, near the rapids that divide the upper and middle Niger valleys in the southwestern part of the country.
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inhabited by impoverished people. Although slums are usually located in urban areas, in some countries they can be located in suburban areas where housing quality is low and living conditions are poor. While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, law enforcement, and other basic services. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings which, because of poor-quality construction or lack of basic maintenance, have deteriorated.
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the physical geography definition based on the physical characteristics of the land.
A medina is a historical district in a number of North African cities, often corresponding to an old walled city. The term comes from the Arabic word simply meaning "city" or "town".
The earliest humans were hunter gatherers who were living in small, family groupings. Even then there was considerable trade that could cover long distances. Archaeologists have found that evidence of trade in luxury items like precious metals and shells across the entirety of the continent.
Koumbi Saleh, or Kumbi Saleh, is the site of a ruined ancient and medieval city in south east Mauritania that may have been the capital of the Ghana Empire. It is also a commune with a population of 11,064.
Trans-Saharan trade is trade between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa that requires travel across the Sahara. Though this trade began in prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century CE. The Sahara once had a different climate and environment. In Libya and Algeria, from at least 7000 BCE, pastoralism, large settlements and pottery were present. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara (Ahaggar) between 4000 to 3500 BCE. Remarkable rock paintings in arid regions portray flora and fauna that are not present in the modern desert.
The population of Africa has grown rapidly over the past century and consequently shows a large youth bulge, further reinforced by a low life expectancy of below 50 years in some African countries. Total population as of 2024 is about 1.5 billion, with a growth rate of about 100 million every three years. The total fertility rate for Africa is 4.7 as of 2018, the highest in the world according to the World Bank. The most populous African country is Nigeria with over 206 million inhabitants as of 2020 and a growth rate of 2.6% p.a.
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were once commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient and medieval world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Red Sea slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practised despite it being illegal.
African empires is an umbrella term used in African studies to refer to a number of pre-colonial African kingdoms in Africa with multinational structures incorporating various populations and polities into a single entity, usually through conquest.
Precolonial Mauritania, lying next to the Atlantic coast at the western edge of the Sahara Desert, received and assimilated into its complex society many waves of Saharan migrants and conquerors.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid refers to the foreign relations of South Africa between 1948 and 1994. South Africa introduced apartheid in 1948, as a systematic extension of pre-existing racial discrimination laws. Initially the regime implemented an offensive foreign policy trying to consolidate South African hegemony over Southern Africa. These attempts had clearly failed by the late 1970s. As a result of its racism, occupation of Namibia and foreign interventionism in Angola, the country became increasingly isolated internationally.
The Bantu peoples are an indigenous ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. The languages are native to countries spread over a vast area from West Africa, to Central Africa, Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. Bantu people also inhabit southern areas of Northeast African states.
The Ghanaian people are a nation originating in the Ghanaian Gold Coast. Ghanaians predominantly inhabit the Republic of Ghana and are the predominant cultural group and residents of Ghana, numbering 34 million people as of 2024, making up 85% of the population. The word "Ghana" means "warrior king". An estimated diaspora population of 4 million people worldwide are of Ghanaian descent. The term ethnic Ghanaian may also be used in some contexts to refer to a group of related ethnic groups native to the Gold Coast.
A secondary city is an urban hub that fills specific regional and local needs related to governance, economics, finance, education, trade, transportation. A secondary city is defined by population, area, function, and economic status, but also by their relationship to neighboring and distant cities and their socio-economic status. A secondary city may emerge from a cluster of smaller cities in a metropolitan region or may be the capital city of a province, state, or second-tier administrative unit within a country. Secondary cities are the fastest-growing urban areas in lower- and middle-income countries, experiencing unplanned growth and development. By 2030, there will be twice as many medium-size cities as there were in 1990, outnumbering the total number of megacities. According to the World Bank, secondary cities make up almost 40% of the world cities population. Many secondary cities in the Global South are expected to undergo massive expansions in the next few decades comparable to city growth in Europe and North America over the past two centuries. These cities are unique environments that generally have limited data and information on infrastructure, land tenure, and planning.
Urban planning in Africa results from indigenous aesthetics and conceptions of form and function as well as the changes brought on by industrialization, modernization, and colonialism. Before the Berlin Conference of 1884 – 1885, which formalized colonialism in many parts of Africa, indigenous African cities and villages had ordered structures that varied along ethnic and religious lines and according to geography. All land-uses necessary for functioning––markets, religious sites, farms, communal assembly spaces––existed in ordered, rational ways, as did land property practices and laws, many of which changed under colonial control. Urbanity changed significantly from pre-colonial to colonial times, as slavery, Christianity, and a host of other forces caused a change in the population of indigenous urban dwellers.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Lilongwe, Malawi.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Durban in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Storey, Glenn Reed, ed. (2006). Urbanism in the preindustrial world: cross-cultural approaches. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press. pp.145–158. ISBN978-0-8173-1476-7.
1 2 3 Grinker R. R. Lubkemann S. C. & Steiner C. B. (2010). Perspectives on africa: a reader in culture history and representation (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
Stock, Robert. 1995: Africa South of the Sahara? A Geographical Interpretation. The Guilford Press, New York.
Aryeetey-Attoh, S. 1997: Urban Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa, in Aryeetey-Attoh, S.: Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa, Prentice Hall, 1997, page 182–186.
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