“Central Africa” is a contested term with three distinct historical references. British Central Africa was the name commonly given to the region comprising the present states of Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, which were united from 1953 to 1962 as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
In a very different association of the term, the Central African Republic is the name given to the former colonial territory of Ubangi-Shari located north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), east of Cameroon, south of Chad, and west of Sudan.
The third, more inclusive use of the term applies it to that region essentially south of Chad (but culturally including the southern third of Chad), west of the Uganda-Tanzania border with the DRC, and north of the Zambezi. It is a vast region, comprising three million square miles – about equal to continental USA – and includes 13 countries, entirely or in part: Chad, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, Democratic...
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Newbury, C. (2021). Africa, Central. In: Mudimbe, V.Y., Kavwahirehi, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2068-5_7
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