Africa before the Berlin Conference, c. 1880

Every state the source draws in Africa around 1880 — kingdoms, caliphates and sultanates, Ethiopia and Liberia, the Boer republics, Ottoman Egypt and Tripolitania, and the European colonies that existed before the 1884–85 Berlin Conference — on the African coastline. Dark, unshaded land is what the source assigns to no state: not empty, but outside any polity it draws. There was no census for most of these states. Population is HYDE 3.2.1's modelled estimate for 1880, summed inside each border: a reconstruction, not a count. States under 15,000 km² are too small for its half-degree grid and get no figure.

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Region namesValues on map

Click a territory for its name, type and estimated population.

Population (1880)· 106M

No state in the source42.8%
Muslim state or sultanate20.6%
African kingdom or chiefdom13.4%
Ottoman Empire & Egypt10.0%
French colony5.0%
Ethiopia & Liberia3.3%
Portuguese colony2.1%
British colony or protectorate1.7%
Boer republic1.2%

Source: Borders: historical-basemaps, world_1880 (aourednik). Population: HYDE 3.2.1 (Klein Goldewijk et al. 2017) via ISIMIP3a, 1880. Coastline: Natural Earth. Polity types coded by birthrate.io.

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