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A straight line border is usually an indicator that it was artificially imposed by a group of people who had never been to the border being defined and did not
by jacalata 10y ago
A straight line border is usually an indicator that it was artificially imposed by a group of people who had never been to the border being defined and did not give a shit about the existing cultural groupings that they were arbitrarily cutting into sections. Africa has a lot of them because it was colonised and split by European powers. Is that what you were looking for? And why on earth do you think that reducing the power of these artificial groupings would be a negative because of how artificial they are?
- 13of40 10y agoTwo things to bear in mind: First, most of the straight-line borders in Africa are in the north and cut through very sparsely inhabited desert [1]. Second, and perhaps more importantly, prior to the early 20th century, borders weren't typically controlled in the way they are now, so drawing a straight line though an inhabited area wouldn't affect much beyond taxes and other administrative issues. [1] http://www.catsg.org/cheetah/07_map-centre/7_1_entire-range/thematic-maps/human_density_africa_2000.png http://www.catsg.org/cheetah/07_map-centre/7_1_entire-range/...
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