Africa's most forgotten country?

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

If I was naming my most forgotten African country it'd be Gabon.

Mauritania comes up in the news every now and again for the fact that it has by far the highest amount of slavery on the planet.

Isn't that Libya now?

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

i can recommend the "draw the borders on africa" Sporcle quiz for role-playing the 1884 Berlin Conference learning more about the political geography of Africa.

https://www.sporcle.com/games/kfasti...africa-borders

heh, I'll try that after Pro-Spa

[Satchmo Distel]

Countries that change name or borders without me noticing. When I was 15, I could reel off the names of all African countries but now I would be 5 or 6 short (at least).

Arguably some were post-imperial geopolitical constructions that ignored ethnic or linguistic boundaries and had no roots in political or economic history but reflected colonial borders.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

I mentioned Western Sahara & Mauritania a week ago here (convo with linus about the tensions between Morocco and Algeria).

Depends where you mean by never. In the Anglosphere and non-French-speaking Europe, you’re probably right, it's rare, although the Guardian website has an African section with daily articles and I think they sort of regularly cover Mauritania. BBC News Africa has the odd article too, this for instance. News24 (South African media) has a strong section on all the African countries, including Western Sahara, https://www.news24.com/Tags/Places/western_sahara

In the Francosphere, Mauritania and the Western Sahara/Sahara Occidental are regularly reported on in a wide variety of French website/newspapers and radio & TV channels, such as:

- Paris-based Jeune Afrique weekly mag & Jeuneafrique.com

- the excellent and very comprehensive Slate Afrique website. slate.fr too has plenty on Africa, Afrik.com (French and English, eg this Sahara Occidental sub-section for instance).

- Le Monde & Le Monde Diplo (Monde Afrique https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/) have daily articles on Africa with plenty of subsections (current news & issues, economy, politics, culture & style, sport, videos etc.). Monde Diplo has lots of handy maps and infographics too: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/

- the dailies Le Figaro, Libération, Les Échos (economy/finance) are fairly strong on Africa too.

- all the main news mags (paper & website) in their international sections have specific African sections, particularly Le Point (African section), L’Express (African section), Les Échos.fr (African-Middle East section), Rue89-nouvel obs website (African section). Ditto the high circulation weeklies Obs, Marianne and the excellent Courier International (original articles translated into French).

- the following TV channels: Arte, LCP, France24 (International News 24/7, in English, they have a comprehensive section on Africa too, in English
http://www.france24.com/en/africa/, TV5 Monde (like this prog), or even France Télévisions (~BBC), sometimes on the commercial channels such as Canal + or M6.

- radio channels too of course: France Inter, Radio France International (French & English), France Culture (pretty international) has plenty on Africa too, etc.

This is a good and short recap on the situation there (in English, subtitled in French):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_cB0cXP72w

Thanks for that. I'll read it through get back to you right after Por-Spa. Hope that's ok.

[San Bernardhinault]

Countries that change name or borders without me noticing. When I was 15, I could reel off the names of all African countries but now I would be 5 or 6 short (at least).

Arguably some were post-imperial geopolitical constructions that ignored ethnic or linguistic boundaries and had no roots in political or economic history but reflected colonial borders.

Swaziland changed its name the other week.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Thanks for that. I'll read it through get back to you right after Por-Spa. Hope that's ok.

Ja självklart, ingen fara, ta din tid.

[San Bernardhinault]

It's now called eSwatini, I think

[WOM]

Yeah, it's gone from a bricks-and-mortar country to an online affair.

[G-Man]

Sao Tome and Principe seems pretty incognito.

Even when it gets name-checked...

Equatorial Guinea I find hard to place.

The name sort of gives a bit of a clue...

[Amor de Cosmos]

Well yeah, but there's a lot of equator in Africa.

[San Bernardhinault]

It's also, somewhat confusingly, not where the other two African Guineas are. But it does - unlike them - at least have coastline on the Gulf of Guinea, so perhaps it's actually the correctly located Guinea.

[ad hoc]

There was a period a few years back when countries with similar names got called after their capital. Congo Kinshasa vs Congo Brazzaville for example and Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry. That seems to have passed now

[Sits]

So is Congo what used to be Zaire?

[Sits]

Ta

[MsD]

https://www.sporcle.com/games/tobibo...knowncountries

[Patrick Thistle]

I lived in The Gambia when I was a kid and remember how we fled to Senegal when a Marxist group tried to instigate a coup. They were going to shoot all the white people, apparently. Although I was only 5 I was the wrong colour.

I'd nominate the CAR as most forgotten. But there are also 2 Congos and you never hear anything about South West Africa. Namibia sometimes shows up on nature documentaries. Tanzania is a bit of a tourist destination but I doubt most people could find it on a map.

[Sam]

In Amor's defence, Equatorial Guinea isn't as much of a clue as might be presumed, because contrary to what one might reasonably expect given its name, no part of the country's territory actually touches the equator. It's practically all in the northern hemisphere apart from Amor's island of Fernando Pó, which is south of the equator.

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Ja självklart, ingen fara, ta din tid.

Well learned a lot new. Cheers

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

In Amor's defence, Equatorial Guinea isn't as much of a clue as might be presumed, because contrary to what one might reasonably expect given its name, no part of the country's territory actually touches the equator. It's practically all in the northern hemisphere apart from Amor's island of Fernando Pó, which is south of the equator.

They should call it Equatorial-ish Guinea.

[beak]

They should call it Equatorial-ish Guinea.

Equivocal Guinea

[adams house cat]

Don't hear much about the Seychelles. Think they are part of Africa.

[ad hoc]

Technically they are

[adams house cat]

Technically. Is that like Kazakhstan being part of Europe for purposes of UEFA?

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Don't hear much about the Seychelles. Think they are part of Africa.

Seychelles to me is is known as one of the most desired places among Swedish people to have their honeymoon.

Edit: But yeah, if you ask me whether it belongs to Asia or Africa, I'd not be 100 % sure. Not even 50 to be honest.

[ad hoc]

Well they're a group of islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I don't know if they're somehow actually on the African continent geologically but they could just as easy be included in Asia.

Actually I've just looked at a map and they are significantly closer to Africa than Asia. I thought they were about equidistant. I flew there once from Nairobi and it was a long flight