Key Stage 3 geography · Locational knowledge

KS3 Africa geography: deserts, savannahs and cities

In Key Stage 3 geography, children extend what they learned in primary school about the world’s continents by studying Africa in much more detail. They use world maps and atlases to locate its countries and major cities, learn how its environmental regions are arranged from rainforest to hot desert, and begin to explain how physical and human features fit together. The aim is a confident mental map of Africa, replacing the single, simple picture many children arrive with.

Africa: regions, countries and cities, explained

The National Curriculum asks schools to extend pupils’ locational knowledge and spatial awareness of the world’s countries, using maps of the world, and names Africa, Russia, Asia (including China and India) and the Middle East as the places to focus on. For Africa, that means environmental regions, key physical and human characteristics, and countries and major cities. The wording does not list which countries or cities to learn, so schools choose. Most expect pupils to place the main countries, the great rivers and mountains and a good number of capitals and large cities on a map.

Africa is the second-largest continent, with 54 countries recognised by the United Nations. The Equator crosses the middle of it, the Tropic of Cancer crosses the north and the Tropic of Capricorn crosses the south, so its environmental regions form a rough mirror image either side of the Equator. Tropical rainforest lies around the Congo Basin and parts of the west coast. Savannah, a grassland with scattered trees and a long dry season, forms bands north and south of the forest. Further out come the Sahel, a dry transition zone on the southern edge of the Sahara, and then the hot deserts: the Sahara in the north, which is about the size of China or the United States, and the Namib and the semi-desert Kalahari in the south-west. The far north and the south-western tip have a Mediterranean-type climate. Polar deserts do not occur in Africa; children meet those in the Arctic and Antarctic.

The physical map has strong landmarks worth knowing. The Nile, at about 6,650 kilometres, flows north into the Mediterranean Sea. The Congo, Niger and Zambezi are other major rivers. Lake Victoria is the largest lake. The Great Rift Valley runs through East Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is the highest mountain at 5,895 metres, the Atlas Mountains rise in the north-west and the Drakensberg in the south. Children are often surprised that there is snow on some of these mountains and that most of Africa is not desert at all.

On the human side, well over a billion people live in Africa, speaking hundreds of languages. People are not spread evenly: the Nile Valley and Delta, the West African coast and the East African highlands are crowded, while the Sahara is very thinly populated. Cities are growing quickly. Lagos, Cairo and Kinshasa are among the biggest, with Nairobi, Johannesburg, Addis Ababa and many others rising fast. Pupils also learn that the largest city is often not the capital: Nigeria’s capital is Abuja, not Lagos, and Tanzania’s is Dodoma, not Dar es Salaam. South Africa has three capital cities. Spatial awareness grows through using latitude, longitude, scale and compass points to describe where things are. The Prime Meridian, for example, crosses Africa through Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana, and the UK would fit inside Africa more than a hundred times, which many flat world maps hide.

Words your child will hear

Environmental region: A large area with a similar climate, vegetation and wildlife, such as tropical rainforest or hot desert.
Hot desert: A region with very little rain, usually under 250 millimetres a year, and high daytime temperatures, such as the Sahara.
Savannah: Tropical grassland with scattered trees, with a wet season and a long dry season.
Sahel: The dry belt of semi-arid land along the southern edge of the Sahara, running across the continent.
Tropic of Cancer: The line of latitude about 23.5° north of the Equator, which crosses the Sahara.
Capital city: The city where a country’s government sits. It is often, but not always, the largest city.
Rift valley: A long, steep-sided valley formed where the Earth’s crust has pulled apart and dropped down.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

Pupils should be taught to extend their locational knowledge and deepen their spatial awareness of the world’s countries, using maps of the world to focus on Africa, Russia, Asia (including China and India), and the Middle East, focusing on their environmental regions, including polar and hot deserts, key physical and human characteristics, countries and major cities
Pupils should consolidate and extend their knowledge of the world’s major countries and their physical and human features.
Pupils will continue to enrich their locational knowledge and spatial and environmental understanding.

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

Try it: describing a pattern on an atlas map

Using an atlas, describe how Africa’s environmental regions are arranged from north to south through the middle of the continent, and explain why the pattern is similar on both sides of the Equator.

Find the Equator and the two tropics on the map, then switch to the map showing vegetation or climate. Run a finger down the middle of the continent from the Mediterranean coast to the southern tip.
Describe what you pass through, in order: a Mediterranean-type coast, the Sahara desert near the Tropic of Cancer, the Sahel, savannah, tropical rainforest on the Equator, savannah again, then the Kalahari semi-desert near the Tropic of Capricorn, with the Namib desert out on the west coast, and a Mediterranean-type climate again at the south-western tip.
Notice the symmetry: rainforest in the middle, savannah either side, deserts further out, and a milder climate at both ends.
Explain it. Near the Equator the Sun is high all year, so the ground heats up and warm, moist air rises, cools and drops heavy rain: rainforest. That air spreads out and sinks near the tropics, and sinking air is dry, so few clouds form: deserts. In between, the rainy belt moves north and south with the overhead Sun during the year, so rain falls in only one season: savannah.
Add one local detail so the answer is not only a general rule. In the Namib, a cold ocean current running along the coast makes the air even drier, so the desert reaches the sea.

Africa’s environmental regions form bands that repeat either side of the Equator: rainforest at the centre, then savannah, then hot desert near each tropic, with a Mediterranean-type climate on the north coast and at the south-western tip. The pattern exists because rising air at the Equator brings heavy rain, while air that sinks around the tropics is dry, and the rest of the continent sits between those extremes.

Common mistakes and how to help

Talking about Africa as if it were one country, or one kind of place

Primary maps and news stories often show Africa as a single shape and a single story, so children say “in Africa they…” as if 54 countries were the same.

What helps: Always ask which country, which city or which region. Naming a specific place makes the answer more accurate and encourages comparison between countries.

Believing Africa is mostly desert, jungle and safari parks

Those are the images that appear most in films and books. In fact, savannah, highlands, mountains with snow, Mediterranean coasts and very large modern cities are all part of the picture.

What helps: Compare a vegetation map with a population map. Ask where most people actually live, and why they are not in the desert.

Assuming the biggest or best-known city is the capital

Children remember cities they have heard of, such as Lagos or Johannesburg, and assume they are capitals.

What helps: Learn city and capital as a pair, and ask why a government might move its capital inland, as Nigeria did.

Thinking Africa is the same size as Europe or Greenland on a flat map

The common world map stretches land far from the Equator, which makes Africa look smaller than it is and northern lands look larger.

What helps: Compare a globe with a flat map, or trace a country such as the UK and see how many copies fit over Africa.

How to help at home

Draw Africa from memory. Ask your child to sketch the outline, then add the Equator, the Sahara, the Nile and three cities. Compare it with an atlas, correct it together and try again a week later.
Trace the UK on an atlas. Trace the shape of the UK on paper and move it around a map of Africa. Counting how many fit gives a memorable feel for scale that a flat world map hides.
Capitals and biggest cities. Write ten African countries on cards with their capitals on the back. Add a bonus point if your child knows the largest city when it differs, as in Nigeria or Tanzania.
Check the label. Look at food and clothing labels at home for African countries, such as fruit, nuts, cocoa or coffee. Find each on the map and ask what the climate there must be like to grow it.
Describe a journey. Choose two cities and ask your child to describe the trip using compass directions, countries crossed and the environmental regions passed through.

Builds on

Key Stage 2: Countries of Europe and Russia
Key Stage 2: North America: countries and features
Key Stage 2: South America: countries and features
Key Stage 2: Counties and cities of the UK
Key Stage 2: UK regions, mountains and rivers
Key Stage 2: UK land use and change
Key Stage 2: Latitude, longitude and hemispheres
Key Stage 2: Tropics and polar circles
Key Stage 2: Prime Meridian and time zones