Sahara: Did you mean...?

European colonising powers sought to exploit Africa's resources from the 15th century onwards. Arab traders had been doing the same in North Africa and East Africa through the Middle Ages, but it was from the 17th...

The estimated expanse of the Achaemenid Empire at its height c. 500 BCE was two million square miles. Most of this territory was conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Empire, who reigned from 559 to 530 BCE...

The discovery of gold at Witwatersrand in Transvaal in 1886, coupled with that of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867, transformed the entire region of Southern Africa. The 'Rand' proved to be the largest...

Sub-Saharan Africa was explored by Roman expeditions between 19 BCE - 90 CE, most likely in an effort to locate the sources of valuable trade goods and establish routes to bring them to the seaports on the coast...

In the 5th century BCE, the Carthaginian explorer Hanno sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules, out of the Mediterranean and into hitherto unknown territory down the Atlantic coast of Africa. In his search to find new...

In the West African desert, gathering and hauling salt is a grueling task, not left for the meek. Camel caravans still move the tablets to market. See all National Geographic videos: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/?source=4001...

The ancient and medieval Mediterranean might have been a bustling stage of ever-changing empires but, across the inhospitable barrier of the Sahara Desert, West Africans were equally busy building up and toppling down...

Peoples, cities and states have traded since antiquity but in the medieval period, things escalated so that goods travelled ever greater distances by land, river and sea. Great cities arose thanks to commerce and international...

Between c. 700 and 350 BCE, the Mediterranean formed part of a broad and increasingly interconnected system of maritime and overland exchange linking...

The Niger River is the most important river in West Africa, and is the third longest river in Africa after the Nile River and Congo River. Known for its distinctive "boomerang" shape, the Niger River flows from the Guinea Highlands...