Chapter 22

 Rift Valleys are places where the earth’s crust stretches until it breaks  A series of rift valleys stretches from north to south across the center of East Africa  The Great Rift Valley is the largest rift valley in the world  o o

 East Africa has many high, snowcapped volcanic mountains, including Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa  g g  The Ethiopian Highlands are very rugged and cut by deep river valleys

 Tanzania and Kenya have wide plains areas  The Serengeti Plain in Tanzania is famous for its wildlife, such as elephants, giraffes, lions, and zebras  The government has made the plain a national park

 The Nile, the world’s longest river, begins in East Africa  It is formed by the joining of two rivers, the White Nile and the Blue Nile  The White Nile flows out of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake  Lakes have formed along both eastern and western rift valleys

 East Africa’s location on the equator and its varied elevations influence the climates found there

 Areas near the equator receive the most rain, while areas away from the equator experience occasional droughts, or periods when little rain falls  During droughts crops die and people suffer

 South of the equator the climate changes to tropical savanna  Tall grasses and scattered trees  Rift floors are dry with grasslands and thorn shrubs

 North of the equator, plateaus and mountains have a highland climate and dense forests  Temperatures are cooler than on the savanna  Heavy rains make farming possible  Because of the rain and farming, most people in the region live in the highlands

 East of the highlands and on the coast, the land is much lower  Desert and steppe climates  Only shrubs and hardy grasses can grow

 Missionaries brought Christianity to Ethiopia in AD 300s. It moved to Nubia, now part of Egypt and Sudan, later  In the 1200s an emperor named Lalibela had 11 rock churches carved out of the rocky ground

 Islam was a major religion in East Africa by 700  Islam gradually spread from Egypt south into East Africa  Muslims also moved into East Africa from the Indian Ocean. Cities like Mogadishu and Mombasa became Muslim centers

 The Indian Ocean slave trade began more than 1000 years ago  East African, Arabs, and Europeans kidnapped Africans, enslaved them, and shipped them to ports throughout African and Southwest Asia  Most slaves went to Islamic countries 

 The Portuguese built forts and settlements to support the slave trade  In the 1700s Zanzibar became an international slave-trading center  Most European countries ended slavery in the 1800s

 Europeans wanted goods like gold, ivory, and rubber that came from Africa

 To get these goods, Europeans thought they needed to dominate the regions of Africa that they came from  European countries formed colonies in Africa  Only Ethiopia was not colonized  In the 1800s Britain and other countries divided Africa among them, they used imperialism, a practice that tries to dominate another countries government, trade, and culture

 In the 1960s most East African countries gained independence  Some newly independent countries were faced with ethnic conflicts

 Many countries speak languages introduced by European imperialists  For example, French is an official language in Rwanda, while English is spoken Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania

Swahili this the most widely spoken East African language

 Most religions emphasize honoring ancestors  Many East Africans are animists. They believe the natural world contains spirits  Most Christians live in Ethiopia  Islam is also common  Sudan and Somalia are mostly Muslim

 More than 2 million tourists visit Tanzania and Kenya each year  Safari: an overland journey to view wildlife 

 Tanzania is rich in gold and diamonds  Farming is a major activity in both Tanzania and Kenya  However, farming is encroaching on national park land causing a problem for wildlife  Kenya also produces geothermal energy, energy produced from heat of the earth’s interior

 Tanzania’s capital is Dodoma  Dar es Salaam is the country’s business center  Kenya’s capital is Nairobi  U.S. embassies in both Dar es Salaam and Nairobi have been attacked by al Qaeda (1998) Dar es Salaam

 Populated by two main groups the Hutu and the Tutsi  Violence has erupted between the two groups  The borders drawn by Europeans have lumped these two groups together in the same areas

 1990 ethnic conflict led to genocide, the intentional destruction of people, in Rwanda  The Hutu tried to wipe out the Tutsi   Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza

 Both Rwanda and Burundi are densely populated  Neither country has many resources  Both depend on coffee and tea exports to survive

 Large country, mainly agricultural  Conflict between Christians and Muslims  Genocide occurred in a region called Darfur  Millions of people have fled Sudan as refugees  mzsX0 mzsX0

 Recovering from decades of military leadership  Democratic since 1986  About 80 percent of the people work in agriculture  Coffee is the major export

 Has never been under foreign rule  Rich soil in the highlands makes agriculture profitable  Droughts in the 1980s caused a loss of crops  Most people in the highlands are Christian  People in the lowlands are Muslim

 Italian colony in the 1800s then part of Ethiopia  Became a country in 1993  Tourists are drawn to the coasts  Most people are farmers or herders  Cotton is the main export

 Mostly covered with deserts and dry savanna  Too dry for farming, most people are herders  Most people are Muslim  Clans within Somalia have fought over rights to lands and cities, such as Mogadishu, the capital  Movie: Blackhawk Down  1990s civil war and drought caused much hardship

 Small, desert country on the Bab al- Mandab, the strait that connects the Red Sea and Indian Ocean  Was a French colony until 1977  French is the official language  Capital and major seaport is also called Djibouti  Serves as the main port for Ethiopia which is landlocked  Ethnic fighting for many years