The Geography of Post‐colonial Africa: Space, Place and Development in Sub‐saharan Africa (1960–93)1

ABSTRACT This overview of human geographic studies of sub Saharan Africa begins with the contributions made by West European geographers to the colonial service, and the growing interest in post‐war ‘development’ and to the anti‐imperial movements in the late colonial period (1945–60). The paper provides an intellectual map of the contributions by European and African geographers to the broad array of development problems which emerged after 1960. North American geographers made significant contributions to the debate somewhat later, particularly in association with the growing involvement of U.S. development agencies in the 1970s. Particular emphasis is given to geographic studies in fields such as agrarian change, ecological degradation, industrialization, human mobility and patterns of urbanization and settlement.