Africamap: Exploring Senegal and Regions of Western Africa

Much to my surprise, on a map, Senegal appears interrupted by a long, thin strip of land that runs along part of the east-west axis of this 197,000 square kilometer land mass.  From a birds-eye view, Gambia looks thin enough to be a river, and in fact, the border mirrors the boundaries of the Gambia River.  This strange arrangement of having a country completely enclosed or almost completely enclosed within another country occurs in southern Africa as well, where Lesotho is completely enclosed by South Africa. 

Having little to no previous knowledge of the geography of Western Africa, this spatial arrangement struck me as rather bizarre.  The more I thought about it, however, the more I started to question my initial reaction to it; after all, isn’t every country located within another?  Isn’t the United States located within the same landmass that constitutes Canada and Mexico?  Gambia is unique in that it is only surrounded by one country not two; however, thinking about it in terms of these questions allowed me to ponder the significance of man-made boundaries in relation to changes in landscape.  The United States is such a large landmass that changes in culture, language, and economics from Mexico to the U.S. and from the U.S. to Canada are stark and noteworthy.  Gambia, on the other hand, has a size of approximately 10,500 square kilometers, making it about 1/18^th the size of Senegal.   Taking into account its size as well as its admittedly strange geographic location, we can begin to think about how man-made boundaries affect how people perceive the landscape.     

 Using Africamap as a jumping off point, I began to explore any differences I could find between Gambia and Senegal.  I was rather unsurprised to find that there aren’t too many discernable disparities between the two (keeping in mind the limited data available).  The only notable differences that I found were in the 2006 IAG (Index of African Governance) scores and in language families.  Since I don’t know much about the Index of African Governance, I decided to stick with differences in language.

Africamap: Senegal and Gambia map showing language differences

The official language of Senegal is French, while the official language in Gambia is English.  This difference is fundamentally due to colonial history: Senegal is a former French colony, while Gambia is a former British colony.  It’s impossible for me to know, without further research, the implications of this difference.  While I assume that there is much crossover, I also assume that this difference isn’t without its political, cultural, and economic ramifications.  This is a topic that I wish to explore in much greater detail as I journey through Senegal this semester.

Africamap: Senegal and Gambia map showing differences in 2006 IAG scores