How it happened
In the mid-1880s, European powers gathered in Berlin to agree on rules for the division. They discussed not so much the territories themselves as the process: how to claim rights without going to war with one another.
The third number explains the rest. The borders were drawn by people who did not live on those lands, using maps where much of the interior was marked approximately or not marked at all. In that situation, the easiest thing to do was draw a straight line along a parallel or meridian.
A straight line on a map almost always means it was drawn far from the place itself, through negotiations between outsiders rather than with local residents.
The pace of the division was astonishing. Within two decades, almost the entire continent had been divided among several states, and many of those borders were never inspected by the people who drew them, either before or after.
What came of it
The borders split peoples in two while also bringing together in one state groups that shared no common language, history or reason to trust one another. Some countries were left landlocked, while others had their resources split down the middle.
After gaining independence, the new states faced a choice: redraw the borders or leave them as they were. In the 1960s, African countries agreed to recognize the existing lines so they would not start an all-out war. The decision was controversial, but the alternative looked worse.
When assessing the consequences, it is worth avoiding simple explanations. The borders made life harder for the new states, but they were not the only factor: the structure of the colonial economy, the lack of institutions and the great powers' interference during the Cold War also played a role.
The way these lines look on the ground is telling, too. They run through rivers, mountain ranges and villages, matching no natural boundary. Where a border follows a river or mountains, it is almost always older than the colonial division.
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Sources
- The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 established rules for dividing African territories among European powers. The Organization of African Unity adopted the principle of respecting inherited borders in 1964