Black rhinoceros
The black rhinoceros or hook-lipped rhinoceros is a species of rhinoceros, native to eastern and southern Africa including Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Although the rhinoceros is referred to as black, its colors vary from brown to grey; the other African rhinoceros is the white rhinoceros. The word "white" in the name "white rhinoceros" is said to be a misinterpretation of the Afrikaans word wyd meaning wide, referring to its square upper lip, as opposed to the pointed or hooked lip of the black rhinoceros; these species are now sometimes referred to as the hook-lipped rhinoceros. The species overall is classified as critically endangered. Three subspecies have been declared extinct, including the western black rhinoceros, declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2011; the species was first named Rhinoceros bicornis by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema naturae in 1758. The name means "double-horned rhinoceros". There is some confusion about what Linnaeus conceived under this name as this species was based upon the skull of a single-horned Indian rhinoceros, with a second horn artificially added by the collector.
Such a skull is known to have existed and Linnaeus mentioned India as origin of this species. However he referred to reports from early travellers about a double-horned rhino in Africa and when it emerged that there is only one, single-horned species of rhino in India, "Rhinoceros" bicornis was used to refer to the African rhinos. In 1911 this was formally fixed and the Cape of Good Hope declared the type locality of the species; the intraspecific variation in the black rhinoceros has been discussed by various authors and is not settled. The most accepted scheme considers seven or eight subspecies, of which three became extinct in historical times and one is on the brink of extinction: Southern black rhinoceros or Cape black rhinoceros – Extinct. Once abundant from the Cape of Good Hope to Transvaal, South Africa and into the south of Namibia, this was the largest subspecies, it became extinct due to excessive hunting and habitat destruction around 1850. North-eastern black rhinoceros – Extinct.
Central Sudan, Eritrea and southeastern Ethiopia and northern and southeastern Somalia. Relict populations in northern Somalia vanished during the early 20th century. Chobe black rhinoceros – A local subspecies restricted to the Chobe Valley in southeastern Angola and northern Botswana. Nearly extinct only one surviving specimen in Botswana. Uganda black rhinoceros – Former distribution from South Sudan, across Uganda into western Kenya and southwesternmost Ethiopia. Black rhinos are considered extinct across most of this area and its conservational status is unclear. Surviving in Kenyan reserves. Western black rhinoceros – Extinct. Once lived in South Sudan, northern Central African Republic, southern Chad, northern Cameroon, northeastern Nigeria and south-eastern Niger; the range stretched west to the Niger River in western Niger, though this is unconfirmed. The evidence from Liberia and Burkina Faso rests upon the existence of indigenous names for the rhinoceros. A far greater former range in West Africa as proposed earlier is doubted by a 2004 study.
The last known wild specimens lived in northern Cameroon. In 2006 an intensive survey across its putative range in Cameroon failed to locate any, leading to fears that it was extinct in the wild. On 10 November 2011 the IUCN declared the western black rhinoceros extinct. Eastern black rhinoceros – Had a historical distribution from South Sudan, Ethiopia, down through Kenya into north-central Tanzania. Today, its range is limited to Kenya and Tanzania. South-central black rhinoceros – Most distributed subspecies, characterised by a compact body, proportionally large head and prominent skin-folds. Ranged from north-eastern South Africa to northeastern Tanzania and southeastern Kenya. Preserved in reserves throughout most of its former range but extinct in eastern Angola, southern Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique. Extinct but reintroduced in Malawi and Zambia. South-western black rhinoceros – A small subspecies, adapted to survival in desert and semi-desert conditions. Distributed in north-western Namibia and southwestern Angola, today restricted to wildlife reserves in Namibia with sporadic sightings in Angola.
These populations are erroneously referred to D. b. bicornis or D. b. minor but represent a subspecies in their own right. The most adopted alternative scheme only recognizes five subspecies or "eco-types", D. b. bicornis, D. b. brucii, D. b. longipes, D. b. michaeli, D. b. minor. This concept is used by the IUCN, listing three surviving subspecies and recognizing D. b. brucii and D. b. longipes as extinct. The most important difference to the above scheme is the inclusion of the extant southwestern subspecies from Namibia in D. b. bicornis instead of in its own subspecies, whereupon the nominal subspecies is not considered extinct. The rhinoceros originated in the Eocene about fifty million years ago alongside other members of Perissodactyla. Ancestors of the black and the white rhinoceros were present in Africa by the end of the Late Miocene about ten million ye
African forest elephant
The African forest elephant is a forest-dwelling species of elephant found in the Congo Basin. It is the smallest of the three extant species of elephant, but still one of the largest living terrestrial animals; the African forest elephant and the African bush elephant, L. africana, were considered to be one species until genetic studies indicated that they separated an estimated 2–7 million years ago. From an estimated population size of over 2 million prior to the colonization of Africa, the population in 2015 is estimated to be about 100,000 forest elephants living in the forests of Gabon. Due to a slower birth rate, the forest elephant takes longer to recover from poaching, which caused its population to fall by 65% from 2002 to 2014; the African forest elephant was once considered to be a subspecies, Loxodonta africana cyclotis, of the African elephant, together with the African bush elephant. DNA tests, indicated that the two populations were much more genetically distinct than believed.
In 2010, a genetic study confirmed they are separate species which diverged from each other an estimated two to seven million years ago. Still, many governmental and non-governmental agencies consider the forest elephant to be a subspecies for regulatory and conservation purposes. In 2016, DNA sequence analysis argued that L. cyclotis is more related to the extinct European straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, than it is to L. africana. The disputed pygmy elephants of the Congo Basin considered to be a separate species are forest elephants whose diminutive size or early maturity is due to environmental conditions; these forest-dwelling elephants are smaller and darker than their savanna relatives, the bush elephants. The species has five toenails on the fore foot and four on the hind foot, like the Asian elephant, but unlike the African bush elephant, which has four toenails on the fore foot and three on the hind foot, they protect themselves from the sun by using sand. A male African forest elephant exceeds 2.5 m in height smaller than the bush species,which is over 3 m and sometimes 4 m tall.
L. cyclotis weighs around 2.7 tonnes, with the largest specimens attaining 6 tonnes. Pygmy elephants of the Congo Basin, presumed to be a subgroup of L. cyclotis, have weighed as little as 900 kg as adults. Elephants have sensitive skin which can make them prone to sunburn when young; the wrinkles in the elephants’ skin help keep them cool by giving heat a larger surface area through which it can dissipate. The creases in the hide of the elephant absorb moisture longer than one with smooth skin. Since these elephants live in areas where temperatures can reach up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime, the forest elephants skin is more wrinkled than that of Asian elephants. Compared to the bush elephant, the African forest elephant has a longer, more narrow mandible, its tusks are point downward, unlike the savanna elephants that have curved tusks. They are harder and have a more yellow or brownish colour; these strong tusks are used to push through the dense undergrowth of their habitat and bull elephants are sometimes known to have exceptionally long tusks that reach to the ground.
Their tusks can grow to about 1.5 m long and can weigh between 50 and 100 pounds, around the same size as a small adult human. Males use their tusks when fighting with one another and to establish dominance; the top lip and nose are elongated into a trunk, distinctly more hairy than savanna elephants. The trunk, having sensitive tactile perception, serves numerous functions. Elephant trunks are more sensitive than human fingers and are used for signaling, detection and snorkeling through water, sound production and communication, bathing and offense, their trunks have over 100,000 individual muscles, making them strong and useful appendages. The trunk of this species ends in two opposing processes, which contrasts that of the Asian elephant, whose trunk concludes in a single process. Forest elephants have more rounded ears than the bush elephant, their ears serve as a cooling system and by flapping them, they can reduce their body temperature by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Air permeates the thin ears of the elephant, thereby cooling blood as it goes through a web of blood vessels inside the ear before going back to the body.
African forest elephants travel in smaller groups than other elephant species. A typical group size consists of two to eight individuals; the average family unit is three to five members made up of female relatives. Most family groups are a mother and several of her offspring, or several groups of females and their offspring that interact with one another at forest clearings. Female offspring are philopatric, male offspring disperse at maturity. Unlike African savanna elephants, African forest elephants do not interact with other family groups. Male African forest elephants tend to be solitary and only associate with other elephants during the mating season. Males have a dominance hierarchy based on size. Since this species is newly recognized, little to no literature is available on communication and perception. For these mammals and smell are the most important senses they possess because they do not have good eyesight, they can recognize and hear vibrations through the gro
Botswana
Botswana the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. Since it has maintained a tradition of stable representative republic, with a consistent record of uninterrupted democratic elections and the best perceived corruption ranking in Africa since at least 1998, it is Africa's oldest continuous democracy. Botswana is topographically flat, with up to 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert, it is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, Zimbabwe to the northeast. Its border with Zambia to the north near Kazungula is poorly defined but is, at most, a few hundred metres long. A mid-sized country of just over 2 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. Around 10 percent of the population lives in the capital and largest city, Gaborone.
One of the poorest countries in the world—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—Botswana has since transformed itself into one of the world's fastest-growing economies. The economy is dominated by mining and tourism. Botswana boasts a GDP per capita of about $18,825 per year as of 2015, one of the highest in Africa, its high gross national income gives the country a high standard of living and the highest Human Development Index of continental Sub-Saharan Africa. Botswana is a member of the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Nations; the country has been among the hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Despite the success in programmes to make treatments available to those infected, to educate the populace in general about how to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, the number of people with AIDS rose from 290,000 in 2005 to 320,000 in 2013; as of 2014, Botswana has the third-highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, with 20% of the population infected.
The country's name means "land of the tswana", referring to the dominant ethnic group in Botswana. The term Batswana was applied to the Tswana, still the case. However, it has come to be used as a demonym for all citizens of Botswana. Many English dictionaries recommend the term Botswanan to refer to people of Botswana. Archaeological digs have shown. Stone tools and fauna remains have shown that all areas of the country were inhabited at least 400,000 years ago. Evidence left by modern humans such as cave paintings are about 73,000 years old; the original inhabitants of southern Africa were the Khoi peoples. Both speak Khoisan languages and hunted and traded over long distances; when cattle were first introduced about 2000 years ago into southern Africa, pastoralism became a major feature of the economy, since the region had large grasslands free of tsetse fly. It is unclear when Bantu-speaking peoples first moved into the country from the north, although AD 600 seems to be a consensus estimate.
In that era, the ancestors of the modern-day Kalanga moved into what is now the north-eastern areas of the country. These proto-Kalanga were connected to states in Zimbabwe as well as to the Mapungubwe state; these states, located outside of current Botswana's borders, appear to have kept massive cattle herds in what is now the Central District—apparently at numbers approaching modern cattle density. This massive cattle-raising complex prospered until 1300 AD or so, seems to have regressed following the collapse of Mapungubwe. During this era, the first Tswana-speaking groups, the Bakgalagadi, moved into the southern areas of the Kalahari. All these various peoples were connected to trade routes that ran via the Limpopo River to the Indian Ocean, trade goods from Asia such as beads made their way to Botswana most in exchange for ivory and rhinoceros horn; the arrival of the ancestors of the Tswana-speakers who came to control the region has yet to be dated precisely. Members of the Bakwena, a chieftaincy under a legendary leader named Kgabo II, made their way into the southern Kalahari by AD 1500, at the latest, his people drove the Bakgalagadi inhabitants west into the desert.
Over the years, several offshoots of the Bakwena moved into adjoining territories. The Bangwaketse occupied areas to the west, while the Bangwato moved northeast into Kalanga areas. Not long afterwards, a Bangwato offshoot known as the Batawana migrated into the Okavango Delta in the 1790s; the first written records relating to modern-day Botswana appear in 1824. What these records show is that the Bangwaketse had become the predominant power in the region. Under the rule of Makaba II, the Bangwaketse kept vast herds of cattle in well-protected desert areas, used their military prowess to raid their neighbors. Other chiefdoms in the area, by this time, had capitals of 10,000 or so and were prosperous; this equilibrium came to end during the Mfecane period, 1823–1843, when a succession of invading peoples from South Africa entered the country. Although the Bangwaketse were able to defeat the invading Bakololo in 1826, over time all the major chiefdoms in Botswana were attacked and impoverished.
The Bakololo and Amandebele raided and took large numbers of cattle and children from the Batswana—most of whom were driven into the desert or sanctuary areas such as hilltops and caves. Only after 1843, when the Amandebele moved into western Zimbabwe, did this threat subside. During th
Rhinoceros
A rhinoceros abbreviated to rhino, is one of any five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae, as well as any of the numerous extinct species. Two of the extant species are native to three to Southern Asia; the term "rhinoceros" is more broadly applied to now extinct relatives of the superfamily Rhinocerotoidea. Members of the rhinoceros family are some of the largest remaining megafauna, with all species able to reach or exceed one tonne in weight, they have a herbivorous diet, small brains for mammals of their size, one or two horns, a thick protective skin formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure. They eat leafy material, although their ability to ferment food in their hindgut allows them to subsist on more fibrous plant matter when necessary. Unlike other perissodactyls, the two African species of rhinoceros lack teeth at the front of their mouths, relying instead on their lips to pluck food. Rhinoceros are killed by some humans for their horns, which are bought and sold on the black market, used by some cultures for ornaments or traditional medicine.
East Asia Vietnam, is the largest market for rhino horns. By weight, rhino horns cost as much as gold on the black market. People consume them, believing the dust has therapeutic properties; the horns are made of the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails. Both African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn; the IUCN Red List identifies the Black and Sumatran rhinoceros as critically endangered. The word rhinoceros is derived through Latin from the Ancient Greek: ῥῑνόκερως, composed of ῥῑνο- and κέρας with a horn on the nose; the plural in English is rhinoceroses. The collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses is herd; the name has been in use since the 14th century. The family Rhinocerotidae consists of only four extant genera: Ceratotherium, Diceros and Rhinoceros; the living species fall into three categories. The two African species, the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros, belong to the tribe Dicerotini, which originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago.
The species diverged during the early Pliocene. The main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths – white rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing, whereas black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage. There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the Indian rhinoceros and the Javan rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago; the Sumatran rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene. A subspecific hybrid white rhino was bred at the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic in 1977. Interspecific hybridisation of black and white rhinoceros has been confirmed. While the black rhinoceros has 84 chromosomes, all other rhinoceros species have 82 chromosomes. However, chromosomal polymorphism might lead to varying chromosome counts. For instance, in a study there were three northern white rhinoceroses with 81 chromosomes. There are two subspecies of white rhinoceros: the southern white rhinoceros and the northern white rhinoceros.
As of 2013, the southern subspecies has a wild population of 20,405 – making them the most abundant rhino subspecies in the world. However, the northern subspecies is critically endangered, with all, known to remain being two captive females. There is no conclusive explanation of the name "white rhinoceros". A popular idea that "white" is a distortion of either the Afrikaans word wyd or the Dutch word wijd, meaning "wide" and referring to the rhino's square lips, is not supported by linguistic studies; the white rhino has a short neck and broad chest. Females weigh males 2,400 kg; the head-and-body length is 3.5–4.6 m and the shoulder height is 1.8–2 m. On its snout it has two horns; the front horn is larger than averages 90 cm in length and can reach 150 cm. The white rhinoceros has a prominent muscular hump that supports its large head; the colour of this animal can range from yellowish brown to slate grey. Most of its body hair is found on the ear fringes and tail bristles, with the rest distributed rather sparsely over the rest of the body.
White rhinos have the distinctive flat broad mouth, used for grazing. The name "black rhinoceros" was chosen to distinguish this species from the white rhinoceros; this can be confusing, as the two species are not distinguishable by color. There are four subspecies of black rhino: South-central, the most numerous, which once ranged from central Tanzania south through Zambia and Mozambique to northern and eastern South Africa.
Angola
Angola the Republic of Angola, is a west-coast country of south-central Africa. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa, bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Angola has an exclave province, the province of Cabinda that borders the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the capital and largest city of Angola is Luanda. Although inhabited since the Paleolithic Era, what is now Angola was molded by Portuguese colonisation, it began with, was for centuries limited to, coastal settlements and trading posts established starting in the 16th century. In the 19th century, European settlers and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior; the Portuguese colony that became Angola did not have its present borders until the early 20th century because of resistance by groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda. After a protracted anti-colonial struggle, independence was achieved in 1975 as the Marxist–Leninist People's Republic of Angola, a one-party state supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The civil war between the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola and the insurgent anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, supported by the United States and South Africa, lasted until 2002. The sovereign state has since become a stable unitary, presidential constitutional republic. Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, its economy is among the fastest-growing in the world since the end of the civil war. Angola's economic growth is uneven, with most of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population. Angola is a member state of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Southern African Development Community. A multiethnic country, Angola's 25.8 million people span tribal groups and traditions. Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, in the predominance of the Portuguese language and of the Catholic Church; the name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola, which appeared as early as Dias de Novais's 1571 charter.
The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo. Ndongo in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, was nominally a possession of the Kingdom of Kongo, but was seeking greater independence in the 16th century. Modern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San prior to the first Bantu migrations; the Khoi and San peoples hunter-gatherers. They were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north, most of whom originated in what is today northwestern Nigeria and southern Niger. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as large cattle herds, to Angola's central highlands and the Luanda plain. Hendese Bantu established a number of political entities, it established trade routes with other city-states and civilisations up and down the coast of southwestern and western Africa and with Great Zimbabwe and the Mutapa Empire, although it engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the Portuguese colony was sometimes known as Dongo.
Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the area in 1484. The previous year, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south; the Portuguese established their primary early trading post at Soyo, now the northernmost city in Angola apart from the Cabinda exclave. Paulo Dias de Novais founded São Paulo de Loanda in 1575 with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela was fortified in 1587 and became a township in 1617; the Portuguese established several other settlements and trading posts along the Angolan coast, principally trading in Angolan slaves for Brazilian plantations. Local slave dealers provided a large number of slaves for the Portuguese Empire in exchange for manufactured goods from Europe; this part of the Atlantic slave trade continued until after Brazil's independence in the 1820s. Despite Portugal's territorial claims in Angola, its control over much of the country's vast interior was minimal.
In the 16th century Portugal gained control of the coast through a series of wars. Life for European colonists was progress slow. John Iliffe notes that "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years. During the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch West India Company occupied the principal settlement of Luanda in 1641, using alliances with local peoples to carry out attacks against Portuguese holdings elsewhere. A fleet under Salvador de Sá retook Luanda in 1648. New treaties with the Kongo were signed in 1649.
Malawi
Malawi the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in southeast Africa, known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, Mozambique on the east and west. Malawi is over 118,000 km2 with an estimated population of 18,091,575. Lake Malawi takes up about a third of Malawi's area, its capital is Lilongwe, Malawi's largest city. The name Malawi comes from an old name of the Nyanja people that inhabit the area; the country is nicknamed "The Warm Heart of Africa" because of the friendliness of the people. The part of Africa now known as Malawi was settled by migrating Bantu groups around the 10th century. Centuries in 1891 the area was colonised by the British. In 1953 Malawi known as Nyasaland, a protectorate of the United Kingdom, became a protectorate within the semi-independent Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; the Federation was dissolved in 1963. In 1964 the protectorate over Nyasaland was ended and Nyasaland became an independent country under Queen Elizabeth II with the new name Malawi.
Two years it became a republic. Upon gaining independence it became a totalitarian one-party state under the presidency of Hastings Banda, who remained president until 1994. Malawi has a democratic, multi-party government headed by an elected president Arthur Peter Mutharika; the country has a Malawian Defence Force that includes a navy and an air wing. Malawi's foreign policy is pro-Western and includes positive diplomatic relations with most countries and participation in several international organisations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the African Union. Malawi is among the world's least-developed countries; the economy is based in agriculture, with a rural population. The Malawian government depends on outside aid to meet development needs, although this need has decreased since 2000; the Malawian government faces challenges in building and expanding the economy, improving education, environmental protection, becoming financially independent amidst widespread unemployment.
Since 2005, Malawi has developed several programs that focus on these issues, the country's outlook appears to be improving, with a rise in the economy and healthcare seen in 2007 and 2008. Malawi has a low life expectancy and high infant mortality. There is a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, a drain on the labour force and government expenditures. There is a diverse population of native peoples and Europeans, with several languages spoken and an array of religious beliefs. Although there was periodic regional conflict fuelled in part by ethnic divisions in the past, by 2008 it had diminished and the concept of a Malawian nationality had reemerged; the area of Africa now known as Malawi had a small population of hunter-gatherers before waves of Bantu peoples began emigrating from the north around the 10th century. Although most of the Bantu peoples continued south, some remained permanently and founded ethnic groups based on common ancestry. By 1500 AD, the tribes had established the Kingdom of Maravi that reached from north of what is now Nkhotakota to the Zambezi River and from Lake Malawi to the Luangwa River in what is now Zambia.
Soon after 1600, with the area united under one native ruler, native tribesmen began encountering, trading with and making alliances with Portuguese traders and members of the military. By 1700, the empire had broken up into areas controlled by many individual ethnic groups; the Arab slave trade reached its height in the mid- 1800s, when 20,000 people were enslaved and considered to be carried yearly from Nkhotakota to Kilwa where they were sold. Missionary and explorer David Livingstone reached Lake Malawi in 1859 and identified the Shire Highlands south of the lake as an area suitable for European settlement; as the result of Livingstone's visit, several Anglican and Presbyterian missions were established in the area in the 1860s and 1870s, the African Lakes Company Limited was established in 1878 to set up a trade and transport concern working with the missions, a small mission and trading settlement was established at Blantyre in 1876 and a British Consul took up residence there in 1883.
The Portuguese government was interested in the area so, to prevent Portuguese occupation, the British government sent Harry Johnston as British consul with instructions to make treaties with local rulers beyond Portuguese jurisdiction. In 1889, a British protectorate was proclaimed over the Shire Highlands, extended in 1891 to include the whole of present-day Malawi as the British Central Africa Protectorate. In 1907, the protectorate was renamed Nyasaland, a name it retained for the remainder of its time under British rule. In a prime example of what is sometimes called the "Thin White Line" of colonial authority in Africa, the colonial government of Nyasaland was formed in 1891; the administrators were given a budget of £10,000 per year, enough to employ ten European civilians, two military officers, seventy Punjab Sikhs and eighty-five Zanzibar porters. These few employees were expected to administer and police a territory of around 94,000 square kilometres with between one and two million people.
In 1944, the Nyasaland African Congress was formed by the Africans of Nyasaland to promote local interests to the British g
Rwanda
Rwanda the Republic of Rwanda, is a country in Central and East Africa and one of the smallest countries on the African mainland. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rwanda is in the African Great Lakes region and is elevated; the climate is temperate to subtropical, with two dry seasons each year. The population is predominantly rural, with a density among the highest in Africa. Rwandans are drawn from just one cultural and linguistic group, the Banyarwanda, although within this group there are three subgroups: the Hutu and Twa; the Twa are a forest-dwelling pygmy. Scholars disagree on differences between the Hutu and Tutsi. Christianity is the largest religion in the country; the sovereign state of Rwanda has a presidential system of government. The president is Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, who took office in 2000. Rwanda today has low corruption compared with neighbouring countries, although human rights organisations report suppression of opposition groups and restrictions on freedom of speech.
The country has been governed by a strict administrative hierarchy since precolonial times. Rwanda is one of only two countries with a female majority in the national parliament. Hunter gatherers settled the territory in the stone and iron ages, followed by Bantu peoples; the population coalesced first into clans and into kingdoms. The Kingdom of Rwanda dominated from the mid-eighteenth century, with the Tutsi kings conquering others militarily, centralising power and enacting anti-Hutu policies. Germany colonised Rwanda in 1884 as part of German East Africa, followed by Belgium, which invaded in 1916 during World War I. Both European nations perpetuated a pro-Tutsi policy; the Hutu population revolted in 1959. They massacred numerous Tutsi and established an independent, Hutu-dominated state in 1962. A 1973 military coup saw a change of leadership; the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front launched a civil war in 1990. The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, both Hutus, died together when their aeroplane was shot down in April 1994.
Social tensions erupted in the 1994 genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu. The RPF ended the genocide with a military victory. Rwanda's economy suffered in wake of the 1994 genocide, but has since strengthened; the economy is based on subsistence agriculture. Coffee and tea are the major cash crops for export. Tourism is a fast-growing sector. Rwanda is one of only two countries in which mountain gorillas can be visited safely, visitors pay high prices for gorilla tracking permits. Music and dance are an integral part of Rwandan culture drums and the choreographed intore dance. Traditional arts and crafts are produced throughout the country, including imigongo, a unique cow dung art; the name "Rwanda" is derived from the Rwanda-Rundi word rwanda meaning "domain" or an "area occupied by a swarm". The official name of the country was "Rwandese Republic" until May 2003, when the adoption of a new national constitution changed it to its current name of "Republic of Rwanda".
Modern human settlement of what is now Rwanda dates from, at the latest, the last glacial period, either in the Neolithic period around 8000 BC, or in the long humid period which followed, up to around 3000 BC. Archaeological excavations have revealed evidence of sparse settlement by hunter gatherers in the late stone age, followed by a larger population of early Iron Age settlers, who produced dimpled pottery and iron tools; these early inhabitants were the ancestors of the Twa, aboriginal pygmy hunter-gatherers who remain in Rwanda today. Between 700 BC and 1500 AD, a number of Bantu groups migrated into Rwanda, clearing forest land for agriculture; the forest-dwelling Twa moved to the mountain slopes. Historians have several theories regarding the nature of the Bantu migrations. An alternative theory is that the migration was slow and steady, with incoming groups integrating into rather than conquering the existing society. Under this theory, the Hutu and Tutsi distinction arose and was a class distinction rather than a racial one.
The earliest form of social organisation in the area was the clan. The clans were not limited to genealogical lineages or geographical area, most included Hutu and Twa. From the 15th century, the clans began to coalesce into kingdoms. One of these, the Kingdom of Rwanda, ruled by the Tutsi Nyiginya clan, became dominant from the mid-eighteenth century; the kingdom reached its greatest extent during the nineteenth century under the reign of King K
