Saturday, October 24, 2009

Where is sub-Saharan Africa?


Recently I just discovered what the geographical area of the term sub-Saharan Africa is. Now I’m sure many of you are already questioning my intelligence, but I am also sure that many of you have never actually thought about where sub-Saharan Africa is. We are all guilty of just going through the motions for our classes, and not really bothering to look up information apart from what the professor says. I myself just did an assignment and watched a video, but never bothered to look up the terms required to further understand and grasp the topic.

Now, in hindsight, I probably should have known where sub-Saharan Africa was, but we all have those days, and I’m pretty sure many of you are wondering if I’m ever going to tell you where sub-Saharan Africa is. Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of the continent that is below the Sahara Dessert, and I think the light bulb just came on and the room got a little brighter.

Another thing I learned about Africa is that North Africa is linked to the Arabian world. For me, this information also caused a light bulb to go off, because much of sub-Saharan African’s history is missing, or destroyed, while many are aware of Northern African history, in places like Egypt. I think that a large part of the reason why North Africa’s history is more known than sub-Saharan Africa, because many settlers viewed southern African’s as primitive, and unable to build some of the archaeological findings that were found by explorers.
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4 comments:

  1. Good post Kara. I myself fell the same way. I go to class, read what I am supposed to, and take notes, but until I posted, I really could not have told you where Sub-Saharan Africa really was. Good picture to supplement.

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  2. You make a fair point. I find that learning about regions that do not exist today, I usually don't quite know where they are and I don't necessarily find a map that will help me to better understand the subject. Thanks for your honesty; you really put yourself out there in this post!

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  3. Agreed!! We go through the motions, and do only what is needed to do to get by.

    And I am with Ashleigh, you really put your self out there!

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  4. When something is not on our mind all the time in can be difficult to understand new concepts. Sub-Saharan African is the region south of the Saharan desert. Very similar to how the United States are broken down into different regions.

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