FIGURE 12.3 Africa towards the end of the nineteenth century. Based on the map of Africa in 1898 in J.G. Bartholomew’s The Citizen’s Atlas of the World, London (1898), pp. 83–4. The original spelling of the place-names is used here

Table 12.3 Columns (1), (2) show the world ranking in population size and the 1993 population in millions. Nigeria has the largest population in Africa, although (3) it is not the largest in area. Given the very low per capita GDP of all the countries except South Africa, the home market of the smaller countries is minute, comparable to that of a US city with about 100,000 people, or to that of Iceland in Western Europe. Variations in the density of population (4) show the contrast between the comparatively high densities in, for

example, the coastal zone of West Africa and some highland areas in Central and East Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda), and the very low densities in the drier regions (e.g.