The West African Middle Belt
Environmental Fact or Geographer's Fiction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4487239 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M B Gleave, H P White |
| Year | 1969 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 123 |
| Publication date | 1969-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geographical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/213085 |
| OpenAlex | W2012219216 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 1 |
IN GEOGRAPHICAL studies of West Africa regional divisions have commonly been based on the east-west climatic zones that are defined by the decreasing rainfall and the increasing length of the dry season northward from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahara. Climate limits vegetation and the range of choice of farming systems and crops. Since the main resources of West Africa are agricultural, human activities are similarly zoned. The forest belt has the greatest range of opportunities, in terms of choice of crops (especially those produced for export, for yield, and for reliability of harvest). It might be expected that these advantages would become more restricted farther north, until the only possible activity is extensive seminomadic stock raising, like that of the Sahel belt. In fact, although the Sudan zone lacks the wide range of opportunities found in the forest belt, certain parts of it offer a greater range than does the zone or belt that separates the two. This Belt, as it is called, is characterized by limited resources and low population densities. The term was apparently introduced into the literature on Nigeria by Forde in 1946,' though it had been used earlier within that country. It seems that the concept was implicitly regarded for some time as peculiar to Nigeria. In 1957 Harrison Church2 extended the concept to West Africa as a whole, equating the Middle Belt with the Guinea savanna vegetation zone (Fig. i). Thereafter the term has been more widely used by writers
Economic geography · Geographer · Geography · History · Transboundary Water Resource Management
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,09 |
| Citation span | 1971 - 1987 (17) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |