Why were most West-African "cities" really just towns? I'm pretty sure there were more proper cities in the Sahel; why were they largely absent elsewhere?
>>18447822Density
>>18447822>The AI schizo is backI thought you were dead or something
>>18447822>proper cities in the Sahel;jewish lies propaganda
>>18447822The centuries of the Trans-Atlantic and Muslim slave trades caused massive deurbanization.Because kingdoms and polities needed the best weapons to avoid being conquered, and the best way to get weapons was to trade slaves for them, for hundreds of years in much of Africa there was a race to capture as many slaves as possible to maintain a good armory of weapons.Because the easiest way to capture slaves is to take over a big city, people started living in the countryside en masse. By the time of the slave trade ending in the 1800s, West Africans has mostly been living rurally for centuries. So it was tradition at that point.Deurbanization was also a really big thing in the Yucatan post the collapse of their 'classic era.'
>>18447956>The centuries of the Trans-Atlantic and Muslim slave trades caused massive deurbanization.>Because kingdoms and polities needed the best weapons to avoid being conquered, and the best way to get weapons was to trade slaves for them, for hundreds of years in much of Africa there was a race to capture as many slaves as possible to maintain a good armory of weapons.Debunked myth>Because the easiest way to capture slaves is to take over a big city, people started living in the countryside en masse.By the time of the slave trade ending in the 1800s, West Africans has mostly been living rurally for centuries. So it was tradition at that point.NonsenseAlso OP is a moron
>>18447822African history is cool af but redditors make it gay and lame by hyping it up out of pity.Also the very concept of a united African history is retarded, too much distance between different cultural regions to be studied in a unified context.
>>18447822The sandcastle on your pic becomes way less impressive once you realize the scale (by comparing it to the huts next to it)
>>18447956>The centuries of the Trans-Atlantic and Muslim slave trades caused massive deurbanization.Desurbanization implies it was once urbanized in the first place.Where are the ruins of these ancient african megalopolis?
>>18447822Fulani steppeniggers and their even more niggerish jihad destroyed the last bits of civilization in Sahel. Cities were razed, towns were plundered and the Irrigation systems were in ruin after these niggers chimped out in early 1800s
>>18447822>Why were most West-African "cities" really just towns?Well, because if you take into account auxiliary settlements as the locals often did, those towns could have a large population.Even ignore those the West African capitals were bigger than the ones in Balkans
>>18447822>Why were most West-African "cities" really just towns?What do you define as town or city? There's no population threshold that works because almost every city outside of East Asia is basically a semi- urban town relative to them lol. Nor is it tied to the hip with density since some cities are spread out while others are uber dense. Then there's edge cases like Tokyo which is made up of what us effectively multple cities that expanded into each other.
>>18448038>Fulani steppeniggers and their even more niggerish jihad destroyed the last bits of civilization in SahelYou do know they were the civilisation too? Shits not a black and white dichotomy.>Cities were razed, towns were plundered and the Irrigation systems were in ruin after these niggers chimped out in early 1800s.How is this exceptional to them? Like do you find the idea of West African entities expanding that odd?
>>18447976>African history is cool af but redditors make it gay and lame by hyping it up out of pity.Why the fuck would you bring up reddit? No one is making it gay or lame so it seems like your just projecting your feelings too hard.
>>18448062>What do you define as town or city?Architectural complexity and advancement.Same reason that a large campground isn't a village/town.
>>18448177>Architectural complexity and advancement.That'a not even remotely the mandatory criteria of a city lol.
>>18448177>Same reason that a large campground isn't a village/town.It could be
>>18448177>Same reason that a large campground isn't a village/town.Large camp grounds are often classified as cities
>>18448297Maybe in Africa
>>18448297Mostly amongst nomadic populations in Asia and native America actually
>>18448065>You do know steppeniggers were the civilisation tooTell that to Attila, or Genghis or Timur
>>18448300Nope, many cities that we see today used to be much smaller in size for most of their history. Cities aren't some one size fits all checklist.>>18448695Why deny what I said. You think Gulani were some disorganized mishmash of groups or that the Fulani jihads were solely a religious movement?
>>18448895desu Dan Fodio was a quite respectable guy either as a scholar or in terms of his personal ethics. The problem for Fulani jihad was not their religious motivation, but the objective damages they left to the region, look at the Niger basin today, you just can’t simply blame the loss of literary traditions and urban culture on colonizers and deteriorating economic conditions…
>>18447822Urban centers, especially over a certain size, require a few things, namely:>Lots of surrounding high yield cropland or massive maritime food shipmentsWest Africa did not have the soil or rainfall to maintain the amount of calories per acre/square kilometer/square mile to support settlements over certain sizes and amounts. It was also lacking in any deep water ports to enable something like what Rome did with Egyptian grain (and too far away for most of history anyway).>DiseaseAs with all things African, disease ruins everything. You think plagues in Eurasia were bad? While big, they were short term outbreaks that eventually went away and let people get back to business. Sub-Saharan Africa has no such luck. It is always time for disease because of the climate. Malaria, Sleeping Sickness, etc. These diseases don't just "end" and never burn themselves out. They will ravage anyone stupid enough to build a big festering city or irrigation system (and all the sitting water that entails) for the mosquitos and Tsetse Flies and all the other horrid insect born pathogens and parasites to live in. Part of the reason so much of Africa remained semi-nomadic for so long was because staying in an area during certain insects breeding seasons was suicide.
>>18449958>West Africa did not have the soil or rainfall to maintain the amount of calories per acre/square kilometer/square mile to support settlements over certain sizes and amountsPopulation estimates of Kumasi district during the 19th century was estimated to be more than 200k
>>18449968We're talking about cities not "districts". The actual city of Kumasi had a population of 12'000-15'000 max before its destruction. And that generally seems to be around the mathematical limit for how big a sub-saharan settlement could get before modern disease control, fertilizer, cultivars, imports etc. came into the picture. Compared to Europe which as early as the 1300's had 210 cities with consistent populations of 10,000, nearly the size of 1800's Kumasi.
>>18449985>The actual city of Kumasi had a population of 12'000-15'000 max before its destruction.Not really, Freeman estimated the city's population at around 30,000.These estimates only take into account the main urban complex, not the auxiliary settlements that were actually part of it, which is why I mentioned the district. Everyone who visited Kumasi estimated that the expanded population to be way over 30,000. Hudeycoper reported 50 to 60k McCaskie argues that most people that worked in Kumasi were from the auxiliary settlements.Edit the population of the district was 155,000 in the first half of the 19th century >And that generally seems to be around the mathematical limit for how big a sub-saharan settlementPretty sure Timbuktu and pre civil war Sao Salvador had a population of over 100k
