Changes in the rural environment: Areas and settlement

As a rule, settlement areas are linked to the climate. Three quarters of the West African population live in the humid and sub-humid zones, 20% in the semi-arid zone (the Sahel) and 5% in the arid zone.

On this climate map, current settlement patterns still bear the marks of the old Sahelian centres and reflect the tremendous pull of the coastal areas. Today the region has three areas of high rural density (more than 50 people/km²), which are structured by the urban network. The first is along the Gulf of Guinea between Abidjan and Douala; the second is made up of a series of small areas around the coastal towns on the Atlantic coast between Dakar and Monrovia; finally, the third, which is also heterogeneous, stretches from Ouagadougou to N’Djamena, and includes three historical subsets: in central Burkina Faso (the Voltaic centre), in northern Nigeria (the Hausa centre) and around northern Cameroon (the Kanuri centre).

Conversely, sparsely populated rural areas (fewer than 15 people/km²) are situated in apparently hostile environments (arid or very humid zones) but also in the “middle belt”, which roughly corresponds to the areas of valleys affected by river blindness which was eradicated between the mid-1970s and the late 1990s. The settlement or re-settlement of these valleys is not yet over. Certain regions where a good deal of land is still available have population growth rates exceeding 3% per year (above the regional average). Surely new frontiers are developing?

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