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West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa.The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo, as well as Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom Overseas Territory).
The History of West Africa has been divided into its prehistory, the Iron Age in Africa, the period of major polities flourishing, the colonial period, and finally the post-independence era, in which the current nations were formed. West Africa is west of an imagined north–south axis lying close to 10° east longitude, bordered by the ...
The population history of West Africa is composed of West African populations that were considerably mobile and interacted with one another throughout the history of West Africa. Acheulean tool-using archaic humans may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP ( Middle Pleistocene ). [3]
They include Gobirawa, Kabawa, Rumawa, Adarawa, Maouri, and others. These groups were the rulers of Hausa Kingdoms before the Danfodiyo revolution (Jihad) of 1804. [64] "Hausa–Fulani" or "Kado" are Hausanized Fulas, people of mixed Hausa and Fulani origin, most of whom speak a variant of Hausa as their native language.
Archaic traits found in human fossils of West Africa (e.g., Iho Eleru fossils, which dates to 13,000 BP) and Central Africa (e.g., Ishango fossils, which dates between 25,000 BP and 20,000 BP) may have developed as a result of admixture between archaic humans and modern humans or may be evidence of late-persisting early modern humans.
According to UN estimates, the population of Africa may reach 2.49 billion by 2050 (about 26% of the world's total) and 4.28 billion by 2100 (about 39% of the world's total). [12] The number of babies born in Africa compared to the rest of the world is expected to reach approximately 37% in the year 2050.
Archaic traits found in human fossils of West Africa (e.g., Iho Eleru fossils, which dates to 13,000 BP) and Central Africa (e.g., Ishango fossils, which dates between 25,000 BP and 20,000 BP) may have developed as a result of admixture between archaic humans and modern humans or may be evidence of late-persisting early modern humans.
The history of Africa begins with the emergence of hominids, archaic humans and — around 300,000–250,000 years ago — anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ), in East Africa, and continues unbroken into the present as a patchwork of diverse and politically developing nation states. [1]