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Sub-Saharan Africa, Africa south of the Sahara Desert, is the term is used to describe those countries of Africa that are not part of North Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is also known as Black Africa
(though some consider this to be a politically incorrect
or offensive form).
This division of Africa has arisen from the perception of North Africa as predominantly Arab or Berber in ethnicity
or culture and the perception of sub-Saharan Africa as predominantly black in ethnicity or culture, and from the geographic separation of the two regions by the
sparsely populated Sahara Desert. North Africa has long been integrated with the Mediterannean and the Middle East. Sub-Saharan Africa, on
the other hand, had sporadic contacts with the rest of the world before the modern era. While the coasts received visits by
traders, much of the interior of the continent remained unknown to the outside world until the colonial era.
With a few exceptions, such as Mauritius and South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa is one of the poorest regions in the world, and it contains many of the
least developed countries.
The exact position of the dividing line between the two regions is not clear. However, according to one classification of the
two regions, sub-Saharan Africa includes forty-eight nations. Forty-two of these nations are on the African mainland. In
addition, four island nations in the southwest Indian Ocean (Madagascar, The Comoros, Mauritius, and Seychelles) and two island
nations in the Atlantic Ocean (Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe) are considered part of Africa. According to this
classification scheme, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa are:
Central Africa
Eastern Africa
Southern Africa
Western Africa
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