Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Kongo
The BaKongo, numbering three to four million, live in west-central Africa The unitary character of the Kongo group and the identity of the various subgroups are artifacts of colonial rule and ethnography. Most men and many women work, or...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Tropical Forest Foragers
The term "tropical-forest foragers," or "pygmies," refers to ethno-linguistically diverse peoples distributed across the forested regions of Central Africa who are particularly short in stature and who traditionally have lived by...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Mangbetu
The Mangbetu live in the northeastern corner of Zaire. They are the founders of one of the few centralized political systems in Central Africa. The Mangbetu achieved a very high level of technological and material development, as...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Ghorbat Kinship
The term "Ghorbat" is applied to several non-food-producing, itinerant populations of fairly low status throughout the Middle East and even beyond, in parts of formerly Soviet Central Asia and the Balkans. These peripatetic populations...
Michigan State University
Michigan State University: Global Edge: Rwanda: Introduction
Explore statistics, history, culture, economy, politics, and demographics for the country of Rwanda in Central Africa.
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of Natural History: African Voices
This site is the web presence of "African Voices," a permanent exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History. It explores the "diversity, dynamism, and global influence of Africa's peoples and cultures." Includes art, texts, and...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Druze
The Druze are a closed, tightly knit, Arab minority who live in southern Syria, in the mountains of central Lebanon, and in Israel, including the Golan Heights. There are also small communities in Jordan, the United States, Canada, and...
Peace Corps
Peace Corps: Stories
This resource shares many stories of volunteers and their experiences helping people in different lands.
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Fipa
The Fipa are a Bantu-speaking people of southwestern Tanzania in East-Central Africa. The name "Fipa" appears to have been bestowed on them by nineteenth-century traders and means "people of the escarpment." It was later adopted by...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Lunda
"Lunda" is the most widely used English term to refer to literally hundreds of social groups whose oral histories link them in varying ways to a far-flung empire that controlled trade and tribute in much of Central Africa from the...
Curated OER
Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Maps Etc: Africa, 1906
A map of the African continent in 1906 showing European land claims such as British East Africa, German East Africa, Portuguese East Africa, Italian Somalia, and others, and European colonies and corporate states such as Cape Colony,...
Curated OER
Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Maps Etc: Pre Colonial Africa, 1872
A map of Africa showing the continent prior to the Berlin Conference of 1885, when the most powerful countries in Europe at the time convened to make their territorial claims on Africa and establish their colonial borders at the start of...
Curated OER
Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Maps Etc: Colonial Africa, 1904
A map of Africa shortly after the Berlin Conference of 1885, which established the European colonial territory claims on the continent. These European and independent boundaries include Algeria and the Saharan Sphere of French Influence,...
Curated OER
Etc: Maps Etc: Africa Before the Berlin Conference, 1882
A map of Africa as it was known in 1882 before the Berlin Conference of 1885, when the most powerful countries in Europe at the time convened to make their territorial claims on Africa and establish their colonial borders at the start of...
Curated OER
Etc: Maps Etc: Sketch Map of Mid Century Africa, Circa 1850
A map of Africa around the middle of the nineteenth century showing European interests on the continent prior to the Berlin Conference of 1885, which established their territorial claims. The majority of the continent was unexplored at...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Tonga
The Tonga never formed a single political unit. Today they are an ethnic group united by common language and in opposition to other Zambian ethnic groups, with whom they compete. The Tonga speak dialects of ciTonga, a Central Bantu...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Hazara
Most Hazara live in central Afghanistan in an area known as the Hazarajat. Others live in areas north of the Hindu Kush. The Hazarajat and other Hazara territories are mountainous. The climate is severe in winter, with heavy snowfall;...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Karamojong
The Karamojong are a pastoral group who inhabit the plateau region of Uganda. Linguistically, the Karamojong belong to the Central Group of the Nilote Language Family, which also includes several neighboring groups that speak a mutually...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Rukuba
The Rukuba live in central Nigeria, on the High Plateau at some 30 kilometers west of the town of Jos, capital of Plateau State. They are one among the numerous small groups inhabiting the region. These groups are, by African standards,...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Iraqw
The Iraqw are an agrico-pastoral people who live in north-central Tanzania. With the expansion of their territory, the Iraqw have come to interact and coexist with other ethnic groups. Maize is the staple crop of the Iraqw; it is...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Dyula
"Dyula" is a Manding word typically referring to "traders" as a socio-professional category, particularly to Muslim long-distance traders who speak one or another dialect of Manding. The name is used as an ethnic label by...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Bakhtiari
The term "Bakhtiari" refers to a group of people and the area they occupy. The Bakhtiari inhabit the central Zagros Mountains of Iran. The Bakhtiari are traditionally nomadic pastoralists who make their winter encampments in the low...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Mongo
The Mongo inhabit the Congo Basin of central Zaire. They speak a dialect or language within a larger group of Mongo languages. Ideological and moral principles and social reality are mirrored in the culture of the Mongo, particularly in...