Key Stage 3 geography · Place knowledge

KS3 geography: comparing and linking Africa and Asia

Once pupils have studied a region in Africa and a region in Asia, Key Stage 3 geography asks them to put the two side by side. They look for similarities and differences in landscape, climate, people and economy, and for links that connect the places, such as trade, migration and shared history. Along the way they learn to use data, models and more complex ideas about how places and systems depend on each other.

Comparing and linking places in Africa and Asia, explained

The National Curriculum asks pupils to understand geographical similarities, differences and links between places through the study of the human and physical geography of a region in Africa and a region in Asia. It also asks them to become aware of increasingly complex geographical systems and to use geographical knowledge, concepts such as models and theories, and skills to analyse and interpret different data sources. The regions are chosen by the school, so the details differ from class to class. What stays the same is the move from describing places one at a time to comparing them.

Good comparison looks for both. Africa and Asia share many environmental regions, from hot deserts and rainforests to high mountains and great rivers, and the same pulling apart of the crust that formed East Africa’s Rift Valley also opened the Red Sea, which separates Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. Cities are growing fast on both continents. There are also differences: Asia has about three times as many people as Africa and many more of the world’s megacities; many African countries have very young populations, while some Asian countries, such as Japan and China, have ageing ones; and countries within each continent vary hugely in income and way of life. Pupils learn to explain a difference with a reason, not just list it.

Links are as important as comparisons. For centuries seasonal monsoon winds carried sailing boats called dhows across the Indian Ocean between East Africa, Arabia and India, and the sea trade left its mark on languages and food. The language of Madagascar, Malagasy, belongs to the Austronesian family, whose other languages are mostly spoken in south-east Asia and the Pacific. Today, clothing, tea, cotton, phones and metals move through global supply chains. For example, much of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and used in batteries that are mostly made in Asia, while railways and ports in East Africa have been built by Asian companies. People also move between the two continents for work and study, and the UK has historic links with both through the British Empire. Pupils see that a change in one place, such as a drought or a new factory, can have effects far away.

To analyse this, pupils use models and data. Which models are taught is the school’s choice; many use the demographic transition model, which describes how birth and death rates change as countries develop, but pupils also test where it fits and where it does not. They read climate graphs, population pyramids, scatter graphs and maps of income, life expectancy or trade, and learn to ask who produced the data, when and at what scale. A country average, for example, can hide very large differences between rich and poor areas.

Words your child will hear

Interdependence: Places relying on each other, for example for goods, workers, markets and ideas.
Supply chain: The linked steps by which a product moves from raw materials, through factories and shipping, to a shop.
Trade route: A regular path by sea, land or air along which goods are carried between places.
Development indicator: A number used to compare places, such as income per person, life expectancy or the share of children in school.
Population pyramid: A graph showing how many people are in each age group, split into males and females.
Model: A simplified description of how something works, used to explain and predict, but never a perfect match for real places.
Anomaly: A result that does not fit the pattern, which is worth investigating rather than ignoring.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught to understand geographical similarities, differences and links between places through the study of the human and physical geography of a region in Africa and a region in Asia
Pupils should become aware of increasingly complex geographical systems in the world around them.
Pupils should develop greater competence in using geographical knowledge, approaches and concepts [such as models and theories] and geographical skills in analysing and interpreting different data sources.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: a comparison paragraph

Compare the Indian Ocean ports of Mombasa in Kenya and Mumbai in India, and describe one link between them.

Decide what to compare before writing: location, climate and the role each city plays. A set of headings stops the answer from becoming a loose list.
State the similarities. Both are hot, busy ports on the coast of the Indian Ocean, and both have been trading centres for centuries. Both have a rainy season influenced by the monsoon winds.
State the differences, using population figures and climate graphs as evidence. Mumbai is a much larger city: its urban area has more than ten times as many people as Mombasa. It also has far more rain, nearly all of it between June and September, when moist south-west winds from the sea are forced up by the Western Ghats. Mombasa is much closer to the Equator, so it has two rainy seasons, roughly April to June and October to November, as the tropical rain belt follows the overhead Sun north and then south.
Explain each difference by geography, not just describe it. Use the words “because” and “so”.
Describe the link. Traders once used the changing monsoon winds to sail by dhow between East Africa and India: north-east winds in winter carried ships from India and Arabia towards East Africa, and south-west winds in summer carried them back. Today container ships connect the two ports, so goods made or grown in one place can reach shops in the other.

Mombasa and Mumbai are both hot Indian Ocean ports with a long history of trade, and both feel the effect of the monsoon. Mumbai is much bigger and gets far more rain in one concentrated wet season, because the Western Ghats lift moist winds, whereas Mombasa’s rain falls in two seasons as the rain belt passes over it twice a year. The monsoon winds also link them, because they carried traders in dhows between East Africa and India for centuries.

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking comparison means listing differences only

Children often write “X is bigger than Y”. But geographers also look for similarities, and the best answers explain why a similarity or difference exists.

What helps: Ask for one similarity, one difference and one reason, every time. A table with three columns helps: feature, comparison and why.

Using a national average as if it described every person or place

A figure such as income per person is the same for a billionaire and a family on a low income. Within one city, there can be very different lives.

What helps: Ask what the average hides, and look for data at city, region or neighbourhood level, or for a range as well as a mean.

Assuming all links run between rich countries and poor ones, or via Europe

School examples often feature the UK, so children assume that is where all the trade goes. Much trade and investment now runs directly between countries in Africa and Asia.

What helps: Trace one product’s supply chain on a map and mark every country involved. See how many are not in Europe.

Treating two things that go together as proof that one causes the other

If countries with more phone use also have higher incomes, it is tempting to say phones cause wealth. A third factor, such as investment, may cause both, or the link may run the other way.

What helps: When two graphs match, ask what else could explain it and whether you can find a counter-example.

How to help at home

Follow a supply chain. Pick a phone, a pair of trainers or a pack of tea and, using labels and an atlas, list every country you can think of that played a part. Mark them on a map and draw the links.
Compare two weather stories. Keep a simple record of the local weather for a week, then look up the weather in a city in Africa and one in Asia for the same days. Write one similarity, one difference and a reason for each.
Spot the averages that hide. When your child quotes a statistic about a country, ask “who might that number leave out?” Practise on something familiar, such as the average pocket money in a class.
Draw an age pyramid of the family. Sort the ages of everyone in the extended family into bands and draw a simple bar graph on its side. Compare it with a population pyramid from an atlas and discuss what the shapes mean.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: A region of the United Kingdom
Key Stage 2: A region in a European country
Key Stage 2: A region in North or South America