The Scramble for Africa, 1870–1914: Claims, Conquest and the African States on One Map

Lines on a Map, Armies on the Ground

Most maps of the Scramble for Africa show two moments: a nearly empty continent in 1880 and a patchwork of colonies in 1914. Both are misleading. The empty map hides the states that ruled most of Africa, from the Sokoto Caliphate, the largest state in West Africa, to Ethiopia, Asante, Buganda and the Merina kingdom of Madagascar. The colonial map hides how thin European rule often was: many of its borders were drawn in Berlin, Paris and London by people who had never seen the land, years or decades before a single official arrived.

This map tries to show both things at once. For each of the seven powers it draws two layers: a dark one for land it actually controlled with garrisons and administrators, and a light wash on top for what it claimed by treaty, protectorate or sphere of influence. African states keep their own colours until they are conquered, also when a European power has already claimed them on paper, so you can watch claims race ahead of control and control slowly catch up.

Footholds and African Empires, 1870–1883

In 1870 Europe's presence in Africa was mostly coastal. France held Algeria and a string of forts along the Senegal river, Britain held the Cape, Natal, Lagos, Freetown and a row of forts on the Gold Coast, Portugal held Luanda, the Cuanza forts and a few towns on the Mozambique coast, and Spain held Ceuta, Melilla and Fernando Po. Egypt, nominally Ottoman, was the strongest expanding power in the continent: it ruled the Sudan, added Darfur in 1874 and Harar in 1875, until Ethiopia defeated its armies at Gundet and Gura. In West Africa the Toucouleur empire, Samori Ture's new state and the Sokoto Caliphate dominated the savanna, and in the south the Zulu kingdom and the two Boer republics shared the interior with Britain.

The pace changed around 1880. Britain annexed the Transvaal in 1877 and invaded Zululand in 1879, losing some 1,300 men at Isandlwana before winning at Ulundi; the Boers won their independence back at Majuba in 1881. France made Tunisia a protectorate in 1881, and in 1882 Britain occupied Egypt after the battle of Tel el-Kebir. Brazza and Stanley raced each other on the Congo for France and for Leopold II, and in the Sudan the Mahdi's rising destroyed an Egyptian army at Shaykan in November 1883.

Berlin and the Paper Partition, 1884–1891

In 1884 Germany raised its flag in South West Africa, Togo and Kamerun, and Bismarck called the powers to Berlin. The Berlin Act of February 1885 set rules for claiming coasts and recognised Leopold II's Congo Free State, his personal possession, which was proclaimed on 1 July. Khartoum had fallen to the Mahdists in January. Over the next six years treaty followed treaty: the Anglo-German agreement of 1886 split East Africa, Portugal published its 'Rose-Coloured Map' linking Angola and Mozambique until a British ultimatum in January 1890 ended it, the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty of 1890 traded an island in the North Sea for Zanzibar and Uganda, and the Anglo-French declaration of the same year handed France the Sahara down to a line from Say on the Niger to Barruwa on Lake Chad. On the map the light washes spread across the continent in a few years, while the dark patches of real control stay small.

Conquest, 1891–1902

The 1890s turned paper into conquest, mostly by small armies with breech-loading rifles and Maxim guns. France took Ségou in 1890, Dahomey's capital Abomey in 1892 and Timbuktu in 1893, and after sixteen years of war captured Samori Ture in 1898. The Congo Free State broke the Swahili-Arab states of the upper Congo and killed Msiri in Katanga. The British South Africa Company occupied Mashonaland in 1890 and Matabeleland in 1893, and put down the Ndebele and Shona risings of 1896–97. France conquered Madagascar in 1895, Portugal the Gaza empire, and Britain sacked Benin City in 1897. The great exception came on 1 March 1896, when Menelik II's army destroyed an Italian army at Adwa; Italy recognised Ethiopia's independence that October, and the Italian wash over Ethiopia disappears from the map.

In 1898 Kitchener's Anglo-Egyptian army destroyed the Mahdist army at Omdurman, then faced Marchand's small French force at Fashoda, a crisis that ended with France backing down. In southern Africa the Second Boer War began in October 1899. The map shows the British holding only the towns and railways of the Boer republics in late 1900 while commandos held the countryside, until the Peace of Vereeniging in May 1902. In British concentration camps about 26,000 Boer women and children and at least 14,000 Black Africans died.

Filling In the Map, 1903–1914

The last phase filled in the claims. Britain took Kano and Sokoto in 1903. In German South West Africa the Herero rose in January 1904; after the battle of Waterberg the German commander von Trotha issued an extermination order, and in the desert and in camps such as Shark Island an estimated 65,000 of 80,000 Herero and 10,000 of 20,000 Nama died. Germany acknowledged it as genocide in 2021. The Maji Maji rising of 1905–07 in German East Africa was crushed with a famine that killed between 75,000 and 300,000 people. In the Congo Free State, rubber quotas enforced by hostage-taking, mutilation and killing caused an international outcry, and Belgium took over the colony from Leopold in 1908.

France conquered Wadai's capital Abéché in 1909 and the Sanusi stronghold of Ain Galakka in 1913. Italy invaded Libya in 1911 but held little more than the coast, Tripolitania and a few posts in the Fezzan by mid-1914. The two Moroccan crises ended with the Treaty of Fez in 1912, a French protectorate and a Spanish zone in the north, yet the Middle Atlas, the Rif and the south were still unsubdued in 1914. On the eve of the First World War the map is almost entirely European on paper, but the dark layers show how much of it, from the Sahara to northern Kenya, Ovamboland and the Somali interior, was still not ruled from any colonial capital.

How to Read the Map

Each colonial power has one colour: Britain red, France blue, Portugal green, Germany slate grey, Leopold II's Congo (Belgian from 1908) gold, Italy olive and Spain orange. The darker fill is effective control; the light wash drawn on top is the power's claim, so land that is both claimed and controlled looks darkest, and an African state inside a European claim keeps its own colour under the wash. Egypt after the British occupation of 1882, and the reconquered Sudan after 1898, have their own brown layer: Egypt was never a colony and stayed nominally Ottoman until December 1914. African states have muted colours of their own; smaller kingdoms, sultanates and confederations share one grey-beige layer. Some layers are split into regions (for example British West Africa and British East and Southern Africa) so that the map loads quickly; the colours are the same.

The extents of effective control are estimates. They are built from forts, stations, mission towns, railways and campaigns: disks around posts, corridors along rivers and railway lines, and whole modern provinces once a region was occupied. Land that was claimed but not administered, or ruled by people without a central state, is shown only by the claim wash. The Dutch forts on the Gold Coast (sold to Britain in 1872) are not shown separately.

How the Map Was Made

The territories are built from Natural Earth's first-level administrative units, because many of the borders of 1914 survive as modern borders, cut by researched treaty lines (Kamerun's strips in Nigeria, Togoland's part of today's Ghana, Neukamerun of 1911, the Spanish zones of Morocco) and by disks and corridors for posts and rivers. Every change of control or claim is a dated step with its source event. The chronology follows Thomas Pakenham's The Scramble for Africa, the Cambridge History of Africa (volumes 6 and 7), Jeffrey Herbst's States and Power in Africa on the gap between nominal and real control, and Edward Hertslet's The Map of Africa by Treaty, with Wikipedia's articles on the individual wars and treaties as a cross-check. Outlines of several African states (Ethiopia, Sokoto, Asante, Wadai, Darfur, Merina) come from Cliopatria (Seshat Global History Databank, CC BY 4.0), and the historical-basemaps project served as a second opinion. An answer key of 258 places with their rulers over time, 650 checks in all, was tested against every keyframe.

Chronological Timeline

• 17 November 1869 — The Suez Canal opens
• 27 October 1871 — Britain annexes the diamond fields of Griqualand West
• 4 February 1874 — British troops burn Kumasi; Gold Coast Colony proclaimed in July
• November 1874 — Egypt conquers Darfur
• 16 November 1875 — Battle of Gundet: Ethiopia defeats Egypt
• 12 April 1877 — Britain annexes the Transvaal
• 22 January 1879 — Battle of Isandlwana; 4 July: Ulundi
• 27 February 1881 — Battle of Majuba; the Transvaal regains self-government
• 12 May 1881 — Treaty of Bardo: French protectorate over Tunisia
• 13 September 1882 — Battle of Tel el-Kebir; British occupation of Egypt
• 5 November 1883 — Battle of Shaykan: the Mahdists destroy Hicks Pasha's army
• 15 November 1884 — The Berlin Conference opens
• 26 January 1885 — Fall of Khartoum
• 26 February 1885 — The Berlin Act
• 1 July 1885 — The Congo Free State proclaimed
• 1 November 1886 — Anglo-German agreement on East Africa
• 2 May 1889 — Treaty of Wuchale
• 11 January 1890 — British Ultimatum ends Portugal's Rose-Coloured Map
• 1 July 1890 — Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty
• 12 September 1890 — The Pioneer Column founds Fort Salisbury
• 20 December 1891 — Msiri killed at Bunkeya
• 17 November 1892 — The French take Abomey
• 4 November 1893 — Bulawayo taken in the Matabele War
• 30 September 1895 — The French take Antananarivo
• 28 December 1895 — Gungunhana of Gaza captured
• 1 March 1896 — Battle of Adwa
• 18 February 1897 — Benin City sacked
• 2 September 1898 — Battle of Omdurman; 18 September: Fashoda
• 29 September 1898 — Samori Ture captured
• 11 October 1899 — The Second Boer War begins
• 22 April 1900 — Battle of Kousséri: Rabih az-Zubayr killed
• 31 May 1902 — Peace of Vereeniging
• 15 March 1903 — The British take Sokoto
• 11 August 1904 — Battle of Waterberg; the Herero and Nama genocide (1904–08)
• July 1905 — The Maji Maji rising begins
• 7 April 1906 — The Algeciras Act
• 15 November 1908 — Belgium annexes the Congo
• 2 June 1909 — The French take Abéché
• 31 May 1910 — Union of South Africa
• 1 July 1911 — Agadir crisis; October: Italy invades Libya
• 30 March 1912 — Treaty of Fez; 27 November: Franco-Spanish treaty
• 27 November 1913 — The French take Ain Galakka in Borkou
• 28 July 1914 — The First World War begins in Europe