ABSTRACT
With the major exception of West Africa the African peoples have not developed towns, but neither is the individual isolated habitation typical. Over most of the continent the pattern, only now becoming disturbed, is for settlement in family groups within the tribe. In Bantu Africa this takes the form of dispersed nucleations of beehive-type, mud-walled, conical thatch-roofed huts, usually with attendant cattle-pens and adjacent gardens or fields. Malnutrition, disease, poverty and ignorance are the lot of the majority of black Africans. The full extent of these afflictions has only become appreciated and documented within the last thirty or forty years. Upon improvements in health and nutrition depend most plans for African economic development. Great advances have been made, particularly since the Second World War, but in turn they have brought further problems. Malaria is widespread throughout Africa except for the highland areas and the most southerly part of the continent.
