Scramble for Africa Map: The Colonial Partition, 1881–1914

Colonial Africa in 1914: Who Held What

The table lists each power's main African territories on the eve of the First World War and the countries they later became.

France held the largest area, much of it Sahara; Britain held the most people and the richest territories, including Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. For a static map, see Africa in 1914 and colonial Africa map.

Why the Scramble Happened

• Economics: industrial Europe wanted raw materials (palm oil, rubber, cotton, cocoa, copper, gold, diamonds) and protected markets, especially during the economic slump of the 1870s–1890s.
• Rivalry and prestige: newly unified Germany and Italy wanted colonies; France sought to recover prestige after defeat in 1870–71; Britain wanted to protect the sea route to India through Suez and around the Cape.
• Technology: quinine against malaria, river steamers, railways, the telegraph and repeating rifles and Maxim machine guns made conquest of the interior possible and cheap.
• Trigger events: France's protectorate over Tunisia (1881), Britain's occupation of Egypt (1882), Leopold II's and France's rival claims on the Congo, and Germany's sudden claims in 1884 (South West Africa, Togoland, Kamerun).

The Berlin Conference

To avoid war over rival claims, Germany's Chancellor Otto von Bismarck hosted the Berlin Conference from 15 November 1884 to 26 February 1885. Fourteen states attended (twelve European powers plus the Ottoman Empire and the United States); no Africans were invited. The General Act required powers to notify each other of new coastal claims and to back them with "effective occupation", opened the Congo Basin to free trade and the Congo and Niger to free navigation, and the conference period saw Leopold II's Congo recognised. It did not draw Africa's borders; those were set afterwards by dozens of bilateral treaties. Read more: how the Berlin Conference changed the map of Africa.

Rival Plans: Cape to Cairo vs. Dakar to Djibouti

The shape of the colonial map came partly from competing grand designs:

• Britain's Cape to Cairo: a north–south chain of British territory promoted by Cecil Rhodes. German East Africa blocked it until 1918.
• France's east–west axis: a belt from Senegal to Djibouti. It collided with Britain at Fashoda on the Upper Nile in 1898; France backed down, and the 1899 agreement left the Nile basin to Britain.
• Portugal's "Pink Map": a claim linking Angola and Mozambique across what became Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. A British ultimatum in 1890 ended it.

African Resistance

Africans resisted conquest almost everywhere, often for years:

• Ethiopia: Emperor Menelik II defeated Italy at the Battle of Adwa on 1 March 1896, securing Ethiopia's independence until the Italian occupation of 1936–41.
• Samori Ture fought the French in West Africa from the early 1880s until his capture in 1898.
• The Mahdist state in Sudan ruled from 1885 until its defeat by Anglo-Egyptian forces at Omdurman in 1898.
• The Asante (Ashanti) fought a series of wars with Britain, the last in 1900 (the War of the Golden Stool).
• Southern Africa: the Zulu victory at Isandlwana (1879), the Ndebele and Shona risings of 1896–97 in Rhodesia, and the Herero and Nama uprising of 1904 in German South West Africa, which Germany crushed in what is widely recognised as the first genocide of the 20th century.
• East Africa: the Maji Maji rising against German rule in Tanzania (1905–07).

Liberia, founded in 1822 as a settlement for freed African Americans and independent since 1847, kept its sovereignty with US support but lost claimed territory to British Sierra Leone and French Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire.

How the Map Changed After 1914

• First World War: Germany lost all its colonies. Under League of Nations mandates, Britain took Tanganyika and parts of Togoland and Kamerun; France took most of Kamerun and Togoland; Belgium took Ruanda-Urundi (Rwanda and Burundi); South Africa took South West Africa (Namibia).
• 1936–41: Italy occupied Ethiopia until British and Ethiopian forces expelled it.
• Independence: Libya (1951), Sudan, Morocco and Tunisia (1956), Ghana (1957), then seventeen countries in 1960, the "Year of Africa". Portugal's colonies followed in 1974–75, Zimbabwe in 1980, Namibia in 1990, Eritrea in 1993 and South Sudan in 2011. See the African independence timeline.

Legacy: Why the Scramble Still Shows on the Map

In 1964 the Organisation of African Unity agreed to keep the borders inherited at independence, so today's 54 countries largely follow colonial lines. Straight desert borders, The Gambia's strip along its river, Namibia's Caprivi Strip and the DR Congo's narrow Atlantic outlet are all products of the partition. Peoples such as the Maasai, Ewe, Yoruba, Bakongo and Somali were split between states, while countries such as Nigeria joined many different peoples in one colony. The Scramble also explains why African countries use English, French, Portuguese or Spanish as official languages; see French-speaking, English-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, and colonial powers in Africa.

Key Dates

• 1881: France makes Tunisia a protectorate.
• 1882: Britain occupies Egypt.
• 1884–85: Berlin Conference; Germany claims South West Africa, Togoland and Kamerun.
• 1885: Congo Free State proclaimed.
• 1890: Anglo-German (Heligoland–Zanzibar) Treaty; British ultimatum ends Portugal's Pink Map.
• 1896: Ethiopia defeats Italy at Adwa.
• 1898: Omdurman and the Fashoda crisis.
• 1899–1902: South African War (Anglo-Boer War); Union of South Africa formed in 1910.
• 1904–08: Herero and Nama genocide in German South West Africa.
• 1908: Belgium annexes the Congo Free State.
• 1911–12: Italy seizes Libya; France and Spain divide Morocco.
• 1914: only Ethiopia and Liberia remain independent. See the full Scramble for Africa timeline.