Facts about West Africa.

West Africa is also called Western Africa and the West of Africa, is the westernmost sub-region of the African Continent. West Africa is consists of 18 countries namely:

          Benin, Burkina Faso, Island of Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Island of Saint Helena, Senegal, Sierra, lone, Sao Tome and Principle and Togo.

          The history of West Africa can be divided into five major periods:

          1^st, its prehistory, in which the first human settlers arrived, developed agriculture, and made contact with peoples to the north, the 2^nd,the Iron Age empire that consolidated both Intra-African, and Extra-African trade, and developed centralized states;

3^rd, Major polities flourished, which would undergo an extensive history of contact with non-Africans;

4^th, the colonial period, in which Great Britain and France controlled nearly the whole of the region;

5^th, the post- independence era, in which the nations were formed. West Africa has total landmass of 5,112,903km2; its population is about 340,000,000. Its density is about 49.2/km2 (127.5/sq mi). The major Regional Organization is Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS established in 1975).

The largest cities in West Africa are: Lagos in Nigeria, Abidjan in Ivory Coast, Accra in Ghana, Abuja in Nigeria, and Kumasi in Ghana and so on.