WESTERN AFRICA

region lying south of the Sahara and east and north of the Atlantic Ocean. It is latitudinally divided into two parallel belts of land: the western portion of the Sudan, a geographic area that stretches across the entire width of Africa, and the coastal region, or Guinea Coast. Each belt has its own geography, cultures, and history. The nations of the western Sudan include Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta), Cape Verde, Chad, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. The nations of the Guinea Coast are Benin, Cameroon, Cte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Western Africa is a term used in the Encyclopdia Britannica to designate a geographic region within the continent of Africa. The term West Africa is also often used to refer to this part of the continent. As conventionally understood, however, West Africa comprises all of the areas considered here except Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, and the Saharan parts of Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. West Africa is primarily a political and economic designation; these countries joined to establish the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. Additional reading Physical and human geography Profiles of the western African countries are found in Africa Contemporary Record (annual); West Africa Annual; and Donald George Morrison, Robert Cameron Mitchell, and John N. Paden, Black Africa: A Comparative Handbook, 2nd ed. (1989). The physical environment is explored in Reuben K. Udo , A Comprehensive Geography of West Africa (1978), and The Human Geography of Tropical Africa (1982); R.J. Harrison Church, West Africa, 8th ed. (1980), an environmental study; J.B. Wright (ed.), Geology and Mineral Resources of West Africa (1985); Brian Hopkins, Forest and Savanna, 2nd ed. (1974), on West African tropical ecology; and F. White, Vegetation of Africa (1983). Richard W. Franke and Barbara H. Chasin, Seeds of Famine (1980), is a study of the Sahelian famine of 196974. John C. Caldwell (ed.), Population Growth and Socio-economic Change in West Africa (1975), surveys demographic conditions by region. P.H. Ady (ed.), Africa (1965), is useful.Migration and urbanization are examined in Samir Amin (ed.), Modern Migrations in Western Africa (1974); Josef Gugler and William G. Flanagan, Urbanization and Social Change in West Africa (1978); and K.C. Zachariah and Julien Cond, Migration in West Africa (1981). Economic history and development are analyzed by A.G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa (1973); Douglas Rimmer, The Economies of West Africa (1984); and Claude Meillassoux (ed.), The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (1971). See also J.O.C. Onyemelukwe and M.O. Filani, Economic Geography of West Africa (1983). Works on agriculture include William Allan, The African Husbandman (1965, reprinted 1977); Robert H. Bates, Markets and States in Tropical Africa (1981); Keith Hart, The Political Economy of West African Agriculture (1982); Jonathan Barker (ed.), The Politics of Agriculture in Tropical Africa (1984); and Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolution (1985). Traditional cultures Overviews of African culture are provided by George Murdock, Africa: Its Peoples and Their Culture History (1959), still recommended; and Jocelyn Murray (ed.), Cultural Atlas of Africa (1981). Survey articles on the major ethnic groups may be found in Georges Balandier and Jacques Maquet (eds.), Dictionary of Black African Civilization (1974; originally published in French, 1968). (Western Sudan cultures): A summary of Wolof and Serer ethnography is David P. Gamble, The Wolof of Senegambia, Together with Notes on the Lebu and the Serer (1957, reprinted 1967). Paul Plissier, Les Paysans du Sngal (1966), describes Wolof, Serer, Malinke, and Diola agriculture. On the Mossi, see Peter B. Hammond, Yatenga: Technology in the Culture of a West African Kingdom (1966); and Suzanne Lallemand, Une Famille mossi (1977). Sources for the Fulani include Derrick J. Stenning, Savannah Nomads (1959); and Marguerite Dupire, Peuls nomades: tude descriptive des Wodaabe du Sahel nigrien (1962). Two studies of ethnic culture in urban areas are Enid Schildkrout, People of the Zongo (1978); and John N. Paden, Religion and Political Culture in Kano (1973), on the Hausa and Fulani in Kano, Nigeria. Patrick R. McNaughton, The Mande Blacksmiths (1988), describes artistic, social, and spiritual realms of Mande smiths. Other works include Barbara J. Callaway, Muslim Hausa Women in Nigeria (1987); and Carol Beckwith and Marion van Offelen, Nomads of Niger (1983), a pictorial study.(Guinea Coast cultures): Ethnographic studies include William Tordoff, Ashanti Under the Prempehs, 18881935 (1965); Ivor Wilks, Asante in the Nineteenth Century (1975); Dennis M. Warren, The Akan of Ghana, rev. ed. (1986); Leo Spitzer, The Creoles of Sierra Leone: Responses to Colonialism, 18701945 (1974); J.S. Eades, The Yoruba Today (1980); Rosemary L. Harris, The Political Organization of the Mbembe, Nigeria (1965); Michael Jackson, The Kuranko (1977); J.D.Y. Peel, Ijeshas and Nigerians: The Incorporation of a Yoruba Kingdom, 1890s1970s (1983); Michel Verdon, The Abutia Ewe of West Africa (1983); Daryll Forde, Yako Studies (1964); and Victor C. Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria (1965). Martin B. Thorp David P. Gamble Rosemary Lois Harris