Medieval Africa

Medieval Africa covers the period in which major states and commercial networks expanded across the Sahel, the Horn, the Swahili coast and southern Africa. Gold, salt, ivory, textiles and enslaved people moved through routes connecting inland societies with North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.

The Ghana, Mali and Songhai empires supported cities and scholarship in West Africa; Christian and Muslim states competed and traded in the Horn; Swahili ports linked eastern Africa to Arabia and Asia; and centres such as Great Zimbabwe controlled regional exchange farther south.

The context provides a broad home for surveys of African history during the conventional European Middle Ages. Books focused on a single empire, ruler or city should use a more specific child context when one is available.