When the German adventurer Gerhard Rohlfs visited the city of Ibadan in 1867, he described it as “one of the greatest cities of the interior of Africa” with “endlessly long and wide streets made up of trading stalls.” However, unlike many of the West African cities he had encountered which were centuries old, Ibadan was only about as old as the 36-year-old explorer, yet it quickly surpassed its peers to be counted among the largest cities on the continent by the end of the century.

The East African coast is home to the longest contiguous chain of urban settlements on the continent.

The Wangara chronicle, one of West Africa's oldest surviving historical texts composed around 1650, contains an interesting account explaining the migration of a group of scholars from medieval Malī against the wishes of its ruler:

The southern half of the African continent is populated by speakers of about 550 closely related languages that are referred to as the Bantu languages.