Every location on the planet has a name that locals and visitors alike use to refer to it....CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Many African countries/places gained their identities from either the inhabitants or the colonists, as is the case in any other country.
Almost every country in Africa was dominated by Europeans who came to the continent in search of riches and to conduct exploration.
1. Uganda was named after the Buganda kingdom, which ruled the country during colonial times.
2. Tanzania; in 1964, the former states of Tanganyika and Zanzibar were united under the leadership of Tanzania’s late founding president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, and the country was given the name Tanzania.
4. Sudan was named after the Arabic word Bilal Al Sudan, which means “country of the blacks.”
5. CONGO REPUBLIC/DR CONGO; both countries are named after the famous River Congo, which flows west into the Atlantic Ocean.
6. Zambia, named after the Zambezi River. The name ‘Zambezi’ refers to a large river.
7. Zimbabwe; the Karanga dialect of the Shona people gave this country its name. ‘Zimba-Dza-mabwe’ is a Zulu word that means stone dwellings.’
8. Botswana; derived from the Tswana people, the country’s dominant tribe. BOTSWANA is a Tswana word that means “the territory of the Tswana.”
9. Lesotho is the land of the Sotho people.
10. Swaziland was formerly known as Eswatini. To avoid confusion with Switzerland, it recently changed its name to Eswatini.
11. Mali got its name from the old Malian empire. Mali refers to a location where the king resides.
12. Togo is a country in Africa called after the Ewe language, which means “beyond the river.”
13. Ivory Coast/ Cote’ De Voire’; first name in English, second name in French, but both names mean the same thing. Ivory was gathered from elephants in the kingdom of Ivory.
14. Ghana; the name Ghana refers to a powerful warrior king. Because it was rich in gold, the British dubbed it “Gold Coast” before naming it Ghana.
15. Malawi gets its name from’maravi,’ an old Nyanja word for the people who lived in the area around Lake Malawi.
16. Kenya was founded as a result of the British mispronunciation of the name ‘Kirinyaga.’ According to the Kikuyu people, Kirinyaga means “where God dwells.”
17. Nigeria.
Nigeria’s name is derived from the River Niger, which flows through the country. The term “Nigeria” was coined by Flora Shaw, a British journalist, in the late 19th century when she suggested it as a name for the British colony in West Africa, which eventually became the independent nation of Nigeria..CONTINUE READING>>
