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The geography of North Africa has been reasonably well known since classical antiquity in Greco-Roman geography. Northwest Africa (the Maghreb) was known as either ''Libya'' or ''Africa'', while Egypt was considered part of Asia. The exploration of Sub-Saharan Africa begins with the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, pioneered by kingdom of posts along the coast while they were actively exploring and colonizing the New World. Exploration of the interior of Africa was thus mostly left to the Arab slave traders, who in tandem with the Muslim conquest of the Sudan established far-reaching networks and supported the economy of a number of Sahelian kingdoms during the 15th to 18th centuries. At the beginning of the 19th century, European knowledge of the geography of the interior of Sub-Saharan Africa was still rather limited. It was left for Victorian-era British explorers searching for the famed sources of the Nile, to flesh more detail such as the continent's geological makeup. == Antiquity == The Phoenicians explored North Africa, establishing a number of colonies, the most prominent of which was Carthage. Carthage itself conducted exploration of West Africa. The first circumnavigation of the African continent was probably made by Phoenician sailors, in an expedition commissioned by Egyptian pharaoh Necho II, in c. 600 BC and took three years. A report of this expedition is provided by Herodotus (4.37). They sailed south, rounded the Cape heading west, made their way north to the Mediterranean and then returned home. He states that they paused each year to sow and harvest grain. Herodotus himself is sceptical of the historicity of this feat, which would have taken place close about 120 years before his birth; however, the reason he gives for disbelieving the story is the sailors' reported claim that when they sailed along the southern coast of Africa, they found the Sun stood to their right, in the north; Herodotus, who was unaware of the spherical shape of the Earth found this impossible to believe. Some commentators took this circumstance as proof that the voyage is historical, but other scholars still dismiss the report as unlikely. 〔 Alan B. Lloyd, ''Herodotus'', Book II (1975, 1988 Leiden). Alan Lloyd suggests that the Greeks at this time understood that anyone going south far enough and then turning west would have the sun on their right but found it unbelievable that Africa reached so far south. He suggests that "It is extremely unlikely that an Egyptian king would, or could, have acted as Necho is depicted as doing" and that the story might have been triggered by the failure of Sataspes attempt to circumnavigate Africa under Xerxes the Great. See also Jona Lendering, ''(The circumnavigation of Africa )'', Livius. 〕 The West African coast was explored by Hanno the Navigator in an expedition in c. 500 BC.〔The Periplus of Hanno; a voyage of discovery down the west African coast (1912)〕 The report of this voyage survives in a short ''Periplus'' in Greek, which was first cited by Greek authors in the 3rd century BC. There is some uncertainty as to how far precisely Hanno reached, he clearly sailed as far as Sierra Leone, and may have continued as far as Guinea or even Gabon.〔"Some taking Hanno to the Cameroons, or even Gabon, while others say he stopped at Sierre Leone." (Harden 1971, p. 169).〕 ''Africa'' is named for the Afri people who settled in the area of current-day Tunisia. The Africa Province of the Roman Empire spanned the Mediterranean coast of what is now Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. The parts of North Africa north of the Sahara were well known in antiquity. Prior to the 2nd century BC, however, Greek geographers were unaware that the land mass then known as Libya expanded south of the Sahara, assuming that the desert bounded on the outer Ocean. Indeed, Alexander the Great, according to Plutarchus' ''Lives'', considered sailing from the mouths of the Indus back to Macedonia passing south of Africa as a shortcut compared to the land route. Even Eratosthenes around 200 BC still assumed an extent of the landmass no further south than the Horn of Africa. By the Roman imperial period the Horn of Africa was well-known to Mediterranean geographers. The trading post of Rhapta, described as "the last marketplace of Azania," may correspond to the coast of Tanzania. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, dated to the 1st century AD, appears to extend geographical knowledge further south, to Southeast Africa. Ptolemy's world map of the 2nd century is well aware that the African continent extents significantly further south than the Horn of Africa, but has no geographic detail south of the equator (it is unclear whether it is aware of the Gulf of Guinea)〔The limit of Ptolemy's knowledge in the west is Cape Spartel (35° 48′ N); while he does assume that the coast eventually retreats in a "Great Gulf of the Western Ocean", this is not likely based on any knowledge of the Gulf of Guinea. Eric Anderson Walker, ''The Cambridge history of the British Empire'', Volume 7, Part 1, 1963, (p. 66 ). In the east, Ptolemy is aware of the Red Sea (''Sinus Arabicus'') and the protrusion of the Horn of Africa, describing the gulf south of the Horn of Africa as ''Sinus Barbaricus''.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Exploration of Africa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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