Why is Sub-Saharan Africa Called Sub-Saharan Africa?

Nov 19, 2025 0

The term "Sub-Saharan Africa" refers to the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara Desert.

These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa.

Geopolitically, the term may also include polities that only have part of their territory located in that specified 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 organisation describing the region (e.g. UN, WHO, World Bank, etc.).

The term serves as a grouping counterpart to North Africa, which is instead grouped with the definition of MENA (i.e. Middle East and North Africa) as it is part of the Arab world, and most North African states are likewise members of the Arab League.

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Since around 3900 BCE, the Saharan and sub-Saharan regions of Africa have been separated by the extremely harsh climate of the sparsely populated Sahara, forming an effective barrier that is interrupted only by the Nile in Sudan, though navigation on the Nile was blocked by the Sudd and the river's cataracts.

The Sahara forms a natural border and barrier.

Sub-Saharan Africa has a wide variety of climate zones or biomes.

Climate zones of Africa, showing the ecological break between the hot desert climate of North Africa and the Horn of Africa (red), the hot semi-arid climate of the Sahel and areas surrounding semi-deserts (orange) and the tropical climate of Central and West Africa (blue).

South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in particular are considered megadiverse countries.

The Sahel extends across all of Africa at a latitude of about 10° to 15° N.

Countries that include parts of the Sahara Desert proper in their northern territories and parts of the Sahel in their southern region include Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan.

South of the Sahel, a belt of savanna (the West and East Sudanian savannas) stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ethiopian Highlands.

The Namib and Kalahari Deserts lie in Southern Africa, and are surrounded by semi-deserts including the Karoo region of South Africa.

Historical Context

According to paleontology, early hominid skull anatomy was similar to that of their close cousins, the great African forest apes, gorilla and chimpanzee.

However, they had adopted a bipedal locomotion and freed hands, giving them a crucial advantage enabling them to live in both forested areas and on the open savanna at a time when Africa was drying up, with savanna encroaching on forested areas.

By 3 million years ago several australopithecine hominid species had developed throughout Southern, East, and Central Africa.

They were tool users rather than tool manufacturers.

The next major evolutionary step occurred around 2.3 million BCE, when primitive stone tools were used to scavenge the carcasses of animals killed by other predators, both for their meat and their marrow.

Roughly 1.8 million years ago, Homo ergaster first appeared in the fossil record in Africa.

From Homo ergaster, Homo erectus (upright man) evolved 1.5 million years ago.

They were the first hominids to leave Africa, going on to colonise the entire Old World, and perhaps later on giving rise to Homo floresiensis.

The fossil and genetic evidence shows Homo sapiens developed in East and Southern Africa by around 350,000 to 260,000 years ago and gradually migrated across the continent in waves.

Between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, their expansion out of Africa launched the colonisation of the planet by modern humans.

By 10,000 BCE, Homo sapiens had spread to all corners of the world.

A super brief history of Sub-Saharan Africa

After the Sahara became a desert, it did not present a totally impenetrable barrier for travelers between north and south because of the application of animal husbandry towards carrying water, food, and supplies across the desert.

Prior to the introduction of the camel, the use of oxen, mule, and horses for desert crossing was common, and trade routes followed chains of oases that were strung across the desert.

There were a number of medieval empires of the southern Sahara and the Sahel, based on trans-Saharan trade, including the Ghana Empire and the Mali Empire, Songhai Empire, the Kanem Empire and the subsequent Bornu Empire.

On the coastal section of Southeast Africa, a mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders, leading to the development of the mixed Arab, Persian and African Swahili City States.

In 1487, Bartolomeu Dias became the first European to reach the southernmost tip of Africa.

In 1652, a victualling station was established at the Cape of Good Hope by Jan van Riebeeck on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.

Demographics

According to the 2022 revision of the World Population Prospects, the population of sub-Saharan Africa was 1.1 billion in 2019.

The current growth rate is 2.3%.

Sub-Saharan African countries top the list of countries and territories by fertility rate with 40 of the highest 50, all with TFR greater than 4 in 2008.

Sub-Saharan Africa has so much linguistic diversity.

Linguistic Diversity

With the exception of the extinct Sumerian (a language isolate) of Mesopotamia, Afroasiatic has the oldest documented history of any language family in the world.

Egyptian was recorded as early as 3200 BCE.

The distribution of the Afroasiatic languages within Africa is principally concentrated in North Africa and the Horn of Africa.

The Niger-Congo family is the largest in the world in terms of the number of languages (1,436) it contains.

The vast majority of languages of this family are tonal, such as Yoruba and Igbo.

A major branch of the Niger-Congo languages is Bantu, which covers a greater geographic area than the rest of the family.

Bantu speakers represent the majority of inhabitants in southern, central and southeastern Africa, though San, Pygmy, and Nilotic groups, respectively, can also be found in those regions.

Criticism and Alternative Terms

Some argue that the term "Sub-Saharan Africa" is problematic for several reasons:

Geographical Inaccuracy: International organizations include different sets of countries within the designation, many of which are actually on the Sahara Desert.
Inappropriateness: The phrase is seen as subtly aligned to systemic oppression, looking down on a part of Africa in a way that other continents are not described.
Colonial Legacy: Concern about the term goes back at least 60 years, with African researchers and thinkers recognizing it as rife with colonial legacies.

Rosalind Morris, a professor of African Studies, calls it "such an enormous catchphrase that it’s almost useless."

Tatenda Chinondidyachii Mashanda writes: "It divides Africa according to white ideas of race making North Africans white enough to be considered for their glories, but not really white enough."

As an alternative, the African Union refers to geographic regions of the African continent (eastern Africa, southern Africa, etc.).

If referring to a particular community or country, one can specifically name that community or country.

The South Africa name problem could be easily solved if we called the four compass regions of Africa the same way we call the four compass regions of Europe: northern, eastern, western, and southern.

Table of African Subregions and Included Countries:

Subregion	Countries (Examples)
North Africa	Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia
West Africa	Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast
Central Africa	Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo
East Africa	Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia
Southern Africa	South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia