How Did the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference Change the Map of Africa?

Africa Before the Conference

Before the 1880s, European control in Africa was mostly limited to the coast: French Algeria and Senegal, the British Cape Colony and Natal, Portuguese footholds in Angola and Mozambique, and trading forts along West Africa. Britain had occupied Egypt in 1882. The interior was ruled by African states and societies, among them the Sokoto Caliphate, the Asante (Ashanti) Empire, Buganda, the Ethiopian Empire, Samori Ture's Wassoulou Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. See the pre-colonial Africa map.

Several things changed in the late 19th century: industrial Europe wanted raw materials (rubber, palm oil, cotton, minerals) and markets; quinine made it easier for Europeans to survive malaria; steamships, railways and the Maxim gun gave European forces a decisive military edge; and explorers such as Livingstone, Stanley and Brazza had publicised the interior. Rival claims, especially around the Congo River, where Leopold II, France and Portugal competed, threatened conflict between European states. Portugal and Germany proposed a conference, and German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck hosted it in Berlin.

Who Attended the Berlin Conference?

Fourteen states sent delegates: Germany (host), Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway, the Ottoman Empire and the United States. That is twelve European powers plus the Ottoman Empire and the USA. No African ruler or representative was invited, including the Sultan of Zanzibar, whose mainland territory was soon divided between Britain and Germany.

King Leopold II did not attend in person. His International Association of the Congo was not a state, but during the conference it signed bilateral treaties in which almost all of the participating powers recognised its sovereignty over the Congo Basin. Leopold proclaimed the Congo Free State, his personal possession, a few months later in 1885.

What the General Act of Berlin Decided

The General Act, signed on 26 February 1885, contained six chapters. The provisions that shaped the map were:

• Free trade in the Congo Basin: a large "conventional basin" of the Congo, stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, was opened to the trade of all nations.
• Free navigation of the Congo and Niger rivers for ships of all nations.
• Notification (Article 34): any power taking possession of, or declaring a protectorate over, land on the African coast had to inform the other signatories.
• Effective occupation (Article 35): a claim on the coast was valid only if the power set up enough authority there to protect existing rights and freedom of trade. Paper claims were no longer enough, which pushed powers to send officials, soldiers and treaty-makers quickly.
• Slave trade: signatories pledged to help suppress the slave trade, a pledge later used to justify conquest while forced labour continued.

The Act did not draw a map of Africa. Almost all borders were fixed afterwards in separate bilateral agreements between European governments, such as the Anglo-German agreements of 1886 and 1890 (the 1890 Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty created Namibia's Caprivi Strip) and the Anglo-French agreements of 1889–1899 in West Africa and the Nile basin.

How the Map of Africa Changed After Berlin

In 1880 roughly a tenth of Africa was under European rule; by 1914 about 90% was. The main colonial blocs were:

• Britain: Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, British East Africa (Kenya), Uganda, Nigeria, Gold Coast (Ghana), Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Nyasaland (Malawi), Northern and Southern Rhodesia (Zambia, Zimbabwe), Bechuanaland (Botswana), Basutoland (Lesotho), Swaziland (Eswatini) and the Union of South Africa (formed 1910).
• France: Algeria, Tunisia, most of Morocco (1912), French West Africa (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger, Dahomey/Benin), French Equatorial Africa (Gabon, Congo, Ubangi-Shari/CAR, Chad), Madagascar and French Somaliland (Djibouti).
• Germany: German East Africa (mainland Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi), German South West Africa (Namibia), Kamerun (Cameroon) and Togoland. All were lost after the First World War.
• Belgium: the Congo Free State, Leopold's personal property until international outrage over forced rubber collection led Belgium to annex it as the Belgian Congo in 1908.
• Portugal: Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau), Cabo Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe.
• Italy: Eritrea, Italian Somaliland and Libya (taken from the Ottoman Empire in 1911–12).
• Spain: Spanish Sahara (Western Sahara), northern Morocco, Spanish Guinea (Equatorial Guinea).

Only Ethiopia, which defeated Italy at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, and Liberia remained independent. See the map of Africa in 1914 and the Scramble for Africa timeline.

Why African Borders Look the Way They Do

Because borders were negotiated in European capitals, often with poor maps, many follow lines of latitude and longitude, straight lines between two points, or rivers, rather than the limits of African states or peoples. Estimates suggest that close to half of the length of Africa's borders is made up of straight lines. Examples still visible today include:

• Straight Saharan borders between Egypt, Libya and Sudan, and across Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania.
• The Gambia, a narrow British strip along the Gambia River surrounded by French Senegal.
• The Caprivi Strip (now the Zambezi Region of Namibia), a corridor Germany obtained in 1890 to reach the Zambezi River.
• Divided peoples: the Maasai split between Kenya and Tanzania, the Yoruba between Nigeria and Benin, the Bakongo between the two Congos and Angola, the Ewe between Ghana and Togo, and the Somali across Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.
• Combined peoples: Nigeria, amalgamated by Britain in 1914, joined the Hausa-Fulani north, the Yoruba southwest and the Igbo southeast with hundreds of other groups.

Scholars still debate how "arbitrary" these borders were. Some followed older political limits or were adjusted on the ground by boundary commissions. But the principle was that Europeans, not Africans, decided.

The Legacy Today

At independence, most African states kept their colonial borders. In 1964 the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) resolved in Cairo to respect the borders existing at independence, to avoid wars over redrawing them. As a result, today's political map of 54 countries is still largely the colonial map. The main changes since independence have been Eritrea's separation from Ethiopia (1993) and South Sudan's from Sudan (2011), while Western Sahara remains disputed.

Colonial-era boundaries have also caused disputes that African states resolved through courts and negotiation, such as the Aouzou Strip between Libya and Chad (settled by the International Court of Justice in 1994) and the Bakassi Peninsula between Nigeria and Cameroon (ICJ ruling in 2002, handed over in 2008). Railways built to carry raw materials from the interior to ports, and the division of the continent into English-, French- and Portuguese-speaking states, are other lasting effects. See also colonial Africa map, colonial powers in Africa and the African independence timeline.

Key Dates

• 1882: Britain occupies Egypt.
• 1884: Germany declares protectorates over South West Africa, Togoland and Kamerun.
• 15 Nov 1884: Berlin Conference opens.
• 26 Feb 1885: General Act of Berlin signed.
• 1885: Congo Free State proclaimed.
• 1890: Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty fixes British and German spheres in East Africa.
• 1896: Ethiopia defeats Italy at Adwa.
• 1898: Fashoda crisis between Britain and France on the Nile.
• 1908: Belgium annexes the Congo.
• 1912: France and Spain divide Morocco into protectorates.
• 1914: only Ethiopia and Liberia remain independent.

For the wider story of the partition, read the Scramble for Africa map and how Cecil Rhodes affected the map of Africa.