Dry ports research on African countries: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis

• Review synthesises 70 publications on dry ports across 27 African countries. • Research expanded rapidly since 2019 but remains fragmented across 51 journals. • Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Kenya are top research focus countries. • Driven by structural constraints not seaport congestion unlike developed economies. • Governance challenges and corridor integration shape African dry port development. Research on dry ports has grown globally, yet systematic evidence on Africa remains fragmented across numerous journals, countries and a loosely connected author network. This fragmentation limits the development of an Africa-specific conceptualisation of dry ports and makes it difficult to compare experiences across regions. This article presents a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of dry port studies with an explicit African focus, consolidating dispersed evidence into a continent-centred synthesis. Searches in Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCO Host, Engineering Village, ProQuest and Google Scholar identified 418 records. After applying predefined inclusion/exclusion criteria, 70 publications (69 journal articles and one book chapter) were retained for analysis. The evidence base spans 51 journals and 27 African countries, with concentrations in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa and Kenya. Results show a marked post-2019 increase in African dry port studies but reveal a fragmented author network and dispersed publication outlets. Synthesis across the retained studies highlights three continent-specific features: (i) dry ports often respond to structural constraints including weak inland connectivity, customs/clearance frictions, and limited multimodal integration; (ii) governance and institutional arrangements—including concessioning, regulatory coherence and overlapping mandates—strongly determine performance; and (iii) corridor logistics and regional integration shape the siting and roles of inland terminals beyond seaport decongestion rationales. The review contributes an Africa-centred consolidation of a previously fragmented field, clarifies where and why research attention clusters, and distils core themes that distinguish African dry ports from developed-economy trajectories, providing a baseline for comparative work and future inquiry. In so doing, the review advances theory on port–hinterland systems by foregrounding institutional and corridor-based dynamics. It offers policy-relevant insights for designing dry ports as instruments of regional integration rather than purely as seaport extensions.