Africa is home to more than 800 ethnic groups, each of which has its own language, beliefs, and traditions.
All of these groups lived in Africa long before Europeans founded colonies there in the 1800s.
The Europeans drew boundary lines for their territories without considering traditional regions, and as a result many ethnic groups were split up.
Those arbitrary borders have made it hard for today’s African countries, most of which became independent between 1950 and 1980, to form unified nations.
In 1913, seven European countries, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, controlled every part of Africa except for two countries: Liberia and Ethiopia.
