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Exploring Africa's Physical and Cultural Geography Using GIS

Physical Geography

Using Published Maps (Non GIS Version)

Africa Physical and Cultural Geography Project,
Using Published Maps, Activity 1

Instructions for Students

Goal:  Understand the interrelationships among characteristics of the physical environment of Africa.

Sources used in this assignment:

Rand McNally Classroom Atlas.  1997.  IBSN 528-17729-X.

Rand McNally Goode's World Atlas.  1995.  19th Edition.  LC Catalog Card Number 94-68645.

World Geography Today.  1997.  Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.   Austin:  Harcourt Brace and Company.
        ISBN     0-03-016802-3.

Step 1. Examine the following maps:

From the Classroom Atlas:

Africa political map, page 75.
Africa physical map, page 74.

From Goode's World Atlas:

Africa landforms map, page 206.

Step 2.  Answer the following questions using these maps:
 
A.  What is the most common landform where the rivers begin?
 

B.  Where are the high mountains of the African continent?
 
 

C.  From their sources, which directions are the following rivers flowing (north, southwest, etc):

            1.  Congo
 

            2.  Zambezi
 

            3.  Orange
 

            4.  Nile
 

Step 3.  Examine the following map in addition to the ones listed above:

From the Classroom Atlas:

Africa climate map, page 77.

Step 4.  Answer the following questions using these maps:

    A)  In which belt do the fewest rivers begin?

    B)  In which belt do the most rivers begin?

    C)  Which belt do you expect to be the most densely populated?

Step 5.  Examine the following map in addition to the ones listed above:

From Goode's World Atlas:

Africa annual precipitation map, page 207.

Step 6.  Answer the following questions using these maps:

A.  Identify countries in which a desert is located that you have not already learned about from previous maps.
 

B.  In what precipitation belt do most rivers begin?
 
 

Step 7.  Examine the following map in addition to the ones listed above:

From Goode's World Atlas:

Africa vegetation map, page 207.
 

Step 6.  Answer the following questions using these maps:

A.  What are the vegetation types north of the Atlas Mountains?
 
 

B.  What is the influence of the Atlantic Ocean on the coastal vegetation of Western Sahara?
 

C.  What is the primary vegetation of the low coastal plain of Libya?
 
 
 

D.  Examine the region of equatorial Africa.  Do all the tropical rain forest areas share the same relief?  Explain.
 
 
 
 
 

E.  How does the topography on the east coast of South Africa explain the desert scrub on the west coast?
 
 
 
 

F.  What is the dominant relief feature of the tropical grasslands?
 
 

*** End of Activity 1 Using Published Maps ***