Alkebu-lan: If Africa Was Never Colonized By Europe

Alkebu-lan 1260 AH, by Nikolaj Cyon

Alkebu-lan is the oldest name for Africa. In Arabic, it means “The Land of the Blacks.”

Hi, my name is Nikolaj Cyon and I am an artist from Sweden who has worked with precolonial Africa as a theme in my art for over a year. I have, as a mind experiment, made a map of what Africa could have looked like in the mid 19th century if Europe had never  become a colonizing world power. In order to do this I have tried to construct an alternative historical time-line in which Europe was much harder struck by the plague in the 1350’s and never recovered. Therefore  African nations would have gotten the opportunity to flourish unhindered.

But the project is really about real historical precolonial African nations, and I have tried to form a map of the most prominent of those that existed between the 15th and mid 19th century, by looking at historical maps like the one found in UNESCO’s “A General History of Africa”, linguistic regions and natural boundaries.

I have also made a Prezi presentation in which I explain the map and some historical facts, and also the process of making it. This can be seen here.

The map was recently mentioned in The Washington Post, as number 23 out of 40 interesting maps.

For more versions of the map and details about price, shipping and to order one, click here.