Situated north of the Sahara desert. Algeria shares a common border with Libya, Tunisia, Niger, Mali, and Morocco. Algeria has access to the Mediterranean Sea.

Algerian history spans... read more

Angola has a long and rich history, and is home to some of the largest historical kingdoms in Africa such as the... read more

Benin’s political history after colonialism was characterized by an early period of multiparty competition that proved unstable, and multiple interventions by the military, until the coup that... read more

The Republic of Botswana shares a common border with South Africa in the South, Namibia in the west and north, Zimbabwe in the east, and Zambia in the North.

The earliest inhabitants of... read more

Burkina Faso is a small, poor, landlocked country in West Africa. It is bounded by Niger to the east, Mali to the north and west, and Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Ivory Coast to the south. Burkina Faso... read more

Burundi is a relatively small country located in central Africa, and the name and approximate territory has a continuity with the Kingdom of Burundi which was founded at the end of the 17th... read more

Cameroon is sometimes referred to as a “true African crossroads” not only because of its geographical position, but also because of the country's great variety of ethnic groups and... read more

Cape Verde (or Cabo Verde as the nation now prefers to be called) is located on an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the West coast of Guinea-Bissau. The first permanent settlers of the... read more

Further information:

  • For a broad overview of African independence go to our site’s coverage of African Independence (chronology and history).
  • Guides to... read more

Chad is the fifth largest country in Africa[i]. Chad is estimated to be one of the areas for where the human species originated... read more

The Comoros archipelago African islands are situated in the western Indian Ocean.

The Comoros nation became Islamic in the early 16th century. The Arabs first used these islands as a... read more

Ivory Coast is a West African state bordering Ghana in the east, Burkina Faso, Mali in the north, and Guinea and Liberia in the east. To the south lies the Atlantic Ocean.

The first written... read more