Africa: Did you mean...?

Disregarding the extremely inhospitable spots even the most stubborn of us have enough common sense to avoid, humans have managed to cover an extraordinary amount of territory on this earth. Go back 200,000 years, however, and Homo sapiens...

An early title page from The History and Description of Africa by Leo Africanus (1485-1554), first published in 1526.

This map illustrates the scope and administrative organization of the Roman provinces in North Africa, from the initial conquest in 146 BCE to their full integration into the empire. Following the destruction of Carthage at the end of the...

A map indicating the general direction and timings of the spread of Islam in Africa from the 7th to 18th century CE

A July 1940 photograph of British soldiers with an armoured car in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). (Imperial War Museums)

A cover from a 1905 edition of Puck magazine showing a caricature of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941). The cartoon is suggesting the German monarch's interest in Morocco in North Africa, epitomised in the Moroccan Crises of 1905-6 and 1911...

A cartoon in the French magazine "L'illustration" (January 3, 1885) presenting a critical view of the Berlin Conference of 1884-85. It depicts Otto von Bismarck (1815-98), Chancellor of Germany, cutting a cake labeled 'Africa' with a knife...

A photograph of a group of Supermarine Spitfires of the Royal Canadian Air Force at Goubrine in the North Africa Campaign during the Second World War (1939-45). (Imperial War Museums)

Around 1065, the geopolitical landscape of North Africa and the western Mediterranean was marked by fragmentation, migration, and the rise of new regional powers. Older political structures were weakening, while emergent dynasties and mobile...

Nothern Africa under Roman rule. From H.Kiepert (1879), Historischer Schulatlas.