A Mnemonic for Africa and Arabia.

How I memorized the whole of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and all the countries bordering the latter by using mnemonics and chunking.

My intention in publishing this.

I hope that the chunked list and the observations about it will make it easier for people around the world to memorize all or just part of Africa and Arabia. I do wonder whether a necessary part of the process that worked so well for me is creating one’s own list, and creating and/or finding one’s own patterns in it. I hope for some feedback about this. I hope I will at least inspire someone to so something similar with some part of the world map or some other map.

The reliability of the data I used.

Please note that all the map data used in this article comes from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Wikipedia has a separate article for each parallel and meridian that is a whole number of degrees, and they appear to be very accurate. Thus, it easy to see which nations and seas and major lakes lie on any parallel or meridian. It’s an invaluable resource. For example, here is a link to Wikipedia’s “31st Meridian East”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31st_meridian_east

The Madagascar Seventy (1–70): my new chunked list of all fifty-five African and all ten Arabian-Peninsula Nations together with five miscellaneous zones (marked with asterisks) added to complete a pattern.

1–10 or the Angola Ten.

1. Lesotho

2. Swaziland (AKA Eswatini)

3. South Africa

4. Zimbabwe

5. Zambia

6. Malawi

7. Mozambique

8. Botswana

9. Namibia

10. Angola

11–15 or the Uganda Five.

11. Congo-Kinshasa

12. Tanzania

13. Burundi

14. Rwanda

15. Uganda

16–25 or the Djibouti Ten.

16. Kenya

17. Somalia

18. Congo-Brazzaville (AKA Zaire, DRC)

19. Gabon

20. Equatorial Guinea

21. Cameroon

22. Central African Republic

23. South Sudan

24. Ethiopia

25. Djibouti

26–30 or the Ivory Coast Five.

26. Nigeria

27. Benin

28. Togo

29. Ghana

30. Ivory Coast

31–40 or the Yemen Ten.

31. Somalia

32. Mauritania

33. Mali

34. Burkina Faso

35. Niger

36. Chad

37. Sudan

38. Eritrea

39. Red Sea*

40. Yemen

41–50 or the Kuwait Ten.

41. Morocco

42. Algeria

43. Libya

44. Egypt

45. Sinai*

46. Israel

47. Jordan

48. Saudi Arabia

49. Iraq

50. Kuwait

51–60 or the Guinea-Bissau Ten.

51. Persian Gulf*

52. Bahrain

53. Qatar

54. United Arab Emirates

55. Oman

56. Greenland*

57. Iceland*

58. Western Sahara

59. Gambia

60. Guinea-Bissau

61–70 or the Madagascar Ten.

61. Tunisia

62. Liberia

63. Sierra Leone

64. Guinea-Conakry (AKA Guinea)

65. Cape Verde

66. Sao Tome and Principe (one sovereign nation)

67. Comoros

68. Seychelles

69. Mauritius

70. Madagascar

*Not an African or Middle Eastern nation. Included only to complete a memorable chunk of zones.

How the list is ordered and subdivided.

Content chunking.

Content chunking is used throughout the list. I looked for memorable sets of countries that were also a round number, by which I normally mean a multiple of five or ten, preferably the latter. Thus 1–10 is South Africa and the six countries that border it, together with three countries that while not bordering it, are nearby, and border on countries that do border on South Africa and have a long history of involvement with South Africa, either as friend of foe. Thus anyone reading or thinking about the history of South of Africa would do well to learn 1–10 by heart.

1–10 is also the set of mainland African nations that lie on or south of the fifteenth parallel south. The northern limit of the area covered by 1–10 lies entirely between the fifteenth and the Equator, and is the northern borders of four nations, all of which lie on the fifteenth parallel, which is thus memorable in two ways. The northern tips of the four nations form a fairly straight line that points roughly speaking to the northern tip of Madagascar. This also is memorable, and makes for more accurate freehand drawing of the map.

Contiguity.

Where possible zones are contiguous with the preceding and following zones especially within a set. For example, because Uganda is 15, Kenya is 16, and Somalia is 17. Because Equatorial Guinea is 20, Gabon is 19, and Congo-Kinshasa is 18.

Modularity.

1–9 or 1–10 could be used on their own if you are mainly interested in Southern Africa, or just South Africa. 1–9 includes all six nations that border on South Africa,

Completion of round numbers.

A technique I invented that I call “completing the round number” (I created the phrase on the model of the well-known “completing the square”) is used throughout. It means that when a series of zones is to be memorized, if it is not a round number of zones one or more other zones are added to make it round, because round numbers are more memorable.

For example, in the list below the group of ten zones numbered 31–40 was made into that round number (ten) by adding the Red Sea and Yemen. It was originally a neat row of eight African nations (memorably they are the African nations that lie on the 30th parallel north, and with the sole exception of Burkina Faso, and the “Sahel countries”, meaning each has a large proportion of its area inside the Sahel. I wanted a multiple of ten, so I added the Red Sea and Yemen. These two also lie on the 30th parallel though not being countries in Africa, they cannot be Sahel countries. In fact, my mnemonic list originally had no countries in Arabia. Once I saw I needed some, I decided to add all of them, for completeness. Ordinary memory will let me know that Burkina is not a Sahel country, and that Yemen is not in Africa. The Arabian Peninsula is intimately connected with Africa and is almost part of the latter: geologically it broke away very recently, and is still near, for one thing and I therefore decided to include Arabia.

Likewise, 41–49 started as a neat row of the 4 North African nations cut by the 30th parallel (Tunisia is just missed by it) and touching the Mediterranean Sea. I (in my own mind) broke the Sinai Peninsula off from Egypt because I wanted a round number, i.e. 5 and because it is so interesting and important a zone, being the only part of an African country not in Africa (it’s in Asia). Again, ordinary memory will tell me that the Sinai is part of Egypt, so no harm is done. As for Tunisia, that is collected later as the first zone in 61–70, together with three other zones that did not fit into any neat row, and all six sovereign African island countries.

I ignored all lakes, but because it lies on the Equator I would count Lake Victoria as a zone to keep 16–25 that length and to keep it symmetrical if Somalia and Kenya merged to become one country called Somaliakenya. This is because 16–25 is ten zones, but a merger of Somalia and Kenya would make it nine. The effects of the merger are counteracted by making Lake Victoria, the biggest lake in Africa, by area into a zone. Symmetry is maintained because Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville on the west of the thirtieth meridian would be balanced by Lake Victoria and Somaliakenya on the east of it. The list would have to be understood to be of all African countries, all countries on or bordering the Arabian Peninsula, together with Lake Victoria, the Red Sea, the Sinai, the Persian Gulf, Greenland, and Iceland. The Greek legend of Procrustes comes to mind. The material to be learned has its length (in the form of number of units) altered rather ruthlessly to make it fit the desired length of the chunk and attention could also be paid to the initial letter of the new zone. Thus if ‘V’ were not convenient as an initial, some other zone could be created out of anything else that lay on that part of the Equator that is to the east of Uganda, and had the desired initial letter. A particular initial might spell something memorable. Sinai is convenient as an artificial zone because it’s initial is ‘S’ and so when appended to MALE, it makes MALES. Had Sinai not started with an S, perhaps a province at the eastern border of Egypt does. It wouldn’t be as interesting, I assume (who knows?) as Sinai, but 41–45 would still have five zones and have a pronounceable string of initials, which is the important thing. I tend towards thinking that such tricks should be used only as a last resort, because the mnemonic becomes harder to decipher, because it stands for more kinds of things.

Attention to major parallels and meridians, topological symmetry and analogies.

1 lies on the thirtieth parallel which is one reason it is first (2 is also landlocked and also touches something, though it isn’t a major meridian or parallel, but Mozambique) while 3 contains the intersection of the thirtieth parallel and the thirtieth meridian.

1 and 2 are either side of the thirtieth meridian while 3–5 lie on it. 6 and 7 are to the east of it, while 8–10 are to the west. 11–15 are cut by it, with 11 and 12 mostly either side of it. The thirtieth meridian is thus alluded to or highlighted. I deliberately created a set of analogies between the following sets, that differ by exactly ten. 1–2 and 11–12 each have the thirtieth run between them, in the former case narrowly missing both, and the latter, narrowly hitting both making a tenuous but mnemonically useful analogy. 3–5 and 13–15 lie on the thirtieth. 6–7 and 16–17 lie to east of the thirtieth. 8–9 and 18–19 lie to the west.

1–9 and 11–19 are analogous in that each set is symmetrical about the thirtieth as far as numbers of nations on each side of it. 1–9 has three cut by it, and three on each side while 11–19 has five cut by it and two on each side. 1–2 are extremely near to the intersection of the thirtieth meridian and the thirtieth parallel which is itself nearly on the coast while 12–12 are even nearer to the intersection of thirtieth with the Equator, the intersection being due west of and rather close to what is perhaps the most famous lake in Africa, Lake Victoria. It is the only lake printed on many maps of Africa because it is the largest by area.

Note that the intersection of the thirtieth meridian with the thirtieth parallel north is also rather near both the Mediterranean coast and the Red Sea coast making the triplet very memorable and helping to make the thirtieth meridian all the more interesting and memorable.

Ordinary memory will tell you that after departing Uganda thirtieth just grazes the northeast corner of Zaire before it cuts nearly perfectly in half the remaining three nations due north: South Sudan, Sudan, and Egypt. Thus, one will be able to use it to recall the entire list of African nations cut by the thirtieth meridian.

Only and all the northernmost row of 1–10 (i.e. 5–7 and 10) are cut by the fifteenth parallel south.

Zones 20–30 all lie between the Equator and the fifteenth parallel north. Likewise, 61–64.

31–40 only and all lie on the fifteenth parallel north. I call them the Fifteeners or to be more specific, the north Fifteeners. All the Sahel countries those with a large proportion of their

Closure and unity and attention to natural regions.

I constantly strove to make the round numbers lie at the end of natural-seeming sets of zones. For example, 26–30 stops at a sort of corner where the coast changes direction from going west to going northwest.

Zones 20–25, except for the tiny 20 and 25, are each figuratively a sort of bridge or buffer zone between the Sahel that touches and crosses slightly the northern border and what could be called “the Equatorials”, meaning the countries in Africa cut by the Equator. Zone 26 would is touched by the Sahel to the north, but it doesn’t touch an Equatorial.

Attention to how memorable and pronounceable the initials of the zones and natural subdivisions of zones are.

1–5 is LSSZZ which I think is memorable, because of the pair of pairs of letters. This is purely fortuitous. I chose the order before I noticed the pattern in the initials.

6–10 is MMBNA. MM is 2000 in Roman numerals, and BNA is DNA said wrong.

11–15 is DTBRU. The DT’s are seeing pink elephants and ‘bru’ means ‘bro’ (brother) in English slang, for example in South Africa. So DTBRU could mean a bro who is seeing pink elephants.

16–19 KSCG. I’ve got nothing. “Keep shooting Congo guns”, anyone?

20–25 has initials ECCSED (which sounds like “ex ed”) while 26–30 spells NBTGI (which sounds like “n.b. CGI” said wrongly). Together ECCSEDNBTGI can be recalled (it works for me) by thinking that an image editor got fired because he said “TGI” instead of “CGI” and that that should be noted well, ie “ That guy is an ex ed. N.b. it’s because he said TGI.”

ECCSED (20–25) I call them the “superequatorials”, because they all border an equatorial and lie to the north, ie on top on a typical map or globe. There are four big ones, and two tiny ones. The big ones all border additionally on the Sahel biome and contain just a smidgen of it, always in the extreme north of the country.

26–30 See under 20–25

31–40 SMMBNCSERY. “Slow moving mountains bring new cars, SERY”

41–55 Zones 41–45 spell MALES, 46–50: IJSIK, 51–55: PBQUO. Taken together: MALESIJSIKPBQUO. It sounds a bit like, “Males ij sik. Pb quo.” Which could be taken to be a very garbled version of “Males are sick. Pb quota.” Where Pb is the symbol for lead, meaning “The males are sick from lead poisoning.” Don’t forget that “lead poisoning” is sometimes used as a euphemism for shooting, because bullets are usually made of lead.

56–60 GIWGG “Giwg G” pronounced like “Gewg G” or “G I W double G” ( G.I. Doubleyoodoublegee sounds like the name or nickname of a soldier.)

All lie on the fifteenth meridian west. Greenland and Iceland are very memorably just clipped by it on the eastern extreme. I wanted five zones and so I was glad to include them. It helps the student know and visualize how far west the mainland of Africa extends, because 59 is Gambia which is inside Senegal except for a short coastline, which contains the westernmost point in mainland Africa, and therefore more generally where Africa is and how big it is.

There is another pattern in 56–60. 56, sea, 57, sea, 58, Mauretania and part of Senegal, 59, some more of Senegal, 60, sea and Katchek Island (but 1–64 ignores African and Arabian islands, although not Greenland or Iceland, only counting mainland Africa and Arabia). That’s five numbered zones and a gap after each one. The reason Mauretania and Senegal are ignored and counted as gaps are that they have already been numbered as part of 31–40 (what I call the Yemen Ten). Senegal is 31 and Mauretania is 32. The first and second members of the Yemen Ten.

62–64 LSG. Sounds like LSD said wrong. All three are by design all between the Equator and the fifteenth parallel, as well as on the coast, contiguous, and to the east of the fifteenth meridian west at least as far a the mainland is concerned. They match 26–30, except for not all touching a “Fifteener” meaning a country cut by the fifteenth parallel north. Guinea-Conakry has an island that is cut by the fifteenth meridian, Katchek Island, that I mentioned elsewhere.

65–70 CSCSMM. CS twice then M twice.

Note: The equatorials, as I call them, read from west to east along the Equator, are Gabon (19), Congo(18), DRC (also known as Zaire) (11) , Uganda(15), Kenya (16), Somalia(17). GCDUKS is pronounceable and sounds like a name: “G.C. Duks” it would be. “GC Zuks” if you use the old name, “Zaire” instead of the confusing new name, “DRC”. I have always found the following trips off the tongue rather well and is memorable: Gabon, Congo, Zaire, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia. I say it fairly quickly, with a pause after “Zaire”.

Regard for usefulness and intrinsic interest (or lack of it) of that part of the map.

One reason I included zones 46–50 was how interesting those nations are and useful it is to know about them, as well as the interesting coincidence of Israel, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf all getting just grazed by the thirtieth meridian, and of Arabia’s northern limit being marked so precisely by it. That is on top of just missing Tunisia, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Red Sea.

How the list can be used.

The list can be used on its own. You can memorize it and go over it in your mind whenever you want.

You could simply write the list on the sea part of a map of Africa and wait to see who notices how interesting it is.

You could fill the names of the nations in a blank map in the order of the list from memory.

If a map of Africa and Arabia is to be annotated, one could quietly put a ‘1’ at Lesotho and in the key, have 1. Lesotho, and so on. Thus, the key is simply my mnemonic list.

Students could be told to color a map according to the key. Thus 41–45 would all be one color. Not especially useful for distinguishing them from each other, but that should cause students to wonder, and with a bit of luck ask why. The teacher could then ask them to speculate why. If the thirtieth parallel north is marked on the map, it should be easy. Make sure it clearly just misses Tunisia, like in real life. It is often wrongly shown touching it on low resolution or low-quality maps.

Students could be invited to find their own memorable patterns in the order, before being told about the ones the teacher knows about.

I do not know much about Africa, so most of my patterns are based on the shapes and positions of the countries, whether they lie on the coast, and which parallels and meridians they lie on. An exception is that I knew where the Sahel lay, having copied it from Wikipedia onto my printed map months ago and I had noticed that it ran remarkably close to the fifteenth parallel. Another was that I knew that Angola was involved with South Africa because of a well-known war in Angola. A historian or geographer could probably make a much better chunked list than I have. Please do. Or if you like the list as it is, how about finding additional ways that it is memorable, and letting me know in the responses below, or in some other way. For example, if there is something memorable that every member of one of the chunks of the list has in common that I am not aware of, that would be useful. And this applies to memorable subchunks too, for example if three consecutive members of a chunk have something in common, that is interesting. I just thought of one: the last three members of 11–15 are 13–15 (Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda) have something in common, in their military history if I remember rightly. They comprised a triple alliance that attacked Zaire, and won, despite being exceedingly small by comparison. And the alliance was led by tiny Rwanda. It happened in 1996 and is called the First Congo War in which about half a million people died.

Update: I just checked Wikipedia, and it seems I was close enough to the truth, but the first and second Congo wars blend into each other and it is in a way mainly a civil war in Zaire, and a good few other nations were also involved: Angola, Eritrea, Sudan, and others. It’s very far from cut and dried, and I guess it shows how fortunate we are to have maps with parallels and meridians marked on them, because this sort of information is cut and dried. It’s reliable, simple, and clear, but unfortunately very hard to commit to memory (until now?).

There is no need to use the names of the nations from the start. If the names of the nations are unfamiliar, I would use just the numbers at first for the whole of Africa and Arabia, or just the part being studied. Having the students guess the names of the numbered areas could be fun, perhaps with the students given a list of the relevant nations in alphabetical order.

A jigsaw puzzle or set of wooden blocks might have one piece (or block) per nation and the pieces might be numbered on the bottom according to my system.

A student could travel through Africa and Arabia, visiting each nation in order, starting at Lesotho, and ending in Madagascar. A cruise ship might visit the six African island nations in order.

The name paired with each number e.g. ‘Lesotho’ is paired with ‘1’ could be quickly memorized using the mnemonic peg system. Then a blank map could be filled in or annotated with the name of each nation. This could be done at any stage, whether before or after learning to annotate a map (blank or not) with the correct numbers.

Other mnemonics could be added to mine. If “LSSZZMMBNA” (1–10) is not memorable to you or your students, make up a mnemonic for it, for example “Leery slow ships zig zag. My men bet none arrives.” There’s also “el double ess double zee double em bee en ay” which I think is memorable, especially when you recall the BNA is close to DNA, which is a double-stranded molecule. Also Z is a reflected, more angular S, and M is Z with another line added.

All or just part of Africa could be labelled from memory or drawn from memory.

There is no need for the student to be told about the reasons behind the ordering at the start. Students could be asked to speculate about that or be told some but not all the reasons. Students can be told later, or even never. If parallels and meridians are too hard for the students, they need not be mentioned.

Learning one or more chunks of the list will give you accurate knowledge of many important parallels and meridians with very little effort on your part. The knowledge is implicit, hidden, if you like. Many maps have one or more errors in the positioning of the parallels or meridians or are unclear. For example, on my printed map of the world the thirtieth parallel clearly cuts the Red Sea near its northern tip, which it doesn’t in real life. Few would notice this mistake, but I do, because I know that in 41–50 (MALESIJSIK) which is the set of zones cut by the thirtieth parallel, no major bodies of water are involved.

On some maps I have seen the thirtieth meridian east shown cutting Lesotho, which I know can’t be right, because Lesotho and Swaziland are on opposite sides of it. There’s a sort of symmetry in the fact that though neither touch the thirtieth meridian, Lesotho touches the thirtieth parallel while Swaziland touches Mozambique: they each “get to touch exaclty one thing” besides South Africa. Note that this also reminds me that Swaziland is landlocked, which on many maps is impossible to tell.

Neologisms.

Using one or more of my neologisms (for example “superequatorials”) if is a fun way to see whether the person you are talking to is willing to pretend to know these words. If you like long words, they can be very mnemonic, too. Talking about something and referring to it by name fixes it in one’s memory. Another name one could use for the superequatorials is “eccseders”, because they are the members of the ECCSED set. Thus, one could call Djibouti the easternmost eccseder, or the easternmost superequatorial.

On the other hand, Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda are the five “hypoequatorials”, but to me it seems useless for me to use the word, at least at this stage, as these four are not part of any single sequence or group that I use. Note that I did not say “subequatorials”. The reason is that I searched the internet for both terms and the latter term is already in use in geography, with a different meaning, and the last thing I want to do is cause confusion by using it in an unfamiliar sense. But it remains a fun word, and who knows, one day it be useful. The term “hypoequatorial” is a completely new word. Oh, and “superequatorial” is a word but it is not used anywhere except biology, where it is used to refer to a part of a fungus.

Please note that none of the territory of Equatorial Guinea lies on the Equator, although it does have and island or two that is to the south of the Equator, and therefore has territory both north and south of the Equator.

Another convenient fact is that each of 25–30 (Nigeria to Ivory Coast) besides being an inbetweener and a coastal nation, each touches at least one fifteener from the south and could therefore be called a subfifteener. Neither fifteener nor subfifteener are words used in geography. Neither Liberia nor Sierra Leone is a fifteener, though Guinea-Conakry is. All three are betweeners. All the subfifteeners are betweeners. Nigeria touches the Sahel and is the only noneccseder subfifteener to do so.

41–50 could be called malesijsikers, or thirtiers while 52–55 could be called Arabian double inbetweeners, being in between the fifteenth parallel and the thirtieth, and between the forty-fifth meridian east and the sixtieth.

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

My focus on the thirtieth meridian east in the Madagascar Seventy is partly because that meridian is in itself of considerable interest. Wikipedia says:

“The meridian is the mid point (sic) of Eastern European Time.

The 1992 BBC travel documentary Pole to Pole followed Michael Palin’s journey along the 30° east meridian, which was selected as his travel axis as it covered the most land.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30th_meridian_east

I would add that (this is sort of mnemonic for that part of the meridian to the north of Africa) that part of the Russian border to the north of Ukraine runs near to the meridian. Also, it runs nearly through the exact middle of Ukraine. Continuing south it runs through the middle of the of that part of the Black Sea that is between the Crimea and its western tip. Then it runs through the middle of the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, and then through the middle of that part of the Mediterranean that lies to the south of Turkey and to the north of Egypt. Do you see how I created some “artificial” areas that the meridian passes through the middle of, while trying to make them as natural as possible, and trying to make the mnemonic as full of useful information as possible. To recall “Russia, Ukraine, Black Sea,Turkey, Mediterranean Sea”, “RUBTM” can be pronounced “Rub TM” (“meaning” that Rub is a trademark).

No nation in Africa or Arabia lies on more than one major parallel. By major I mean one that is a multiple of 15 degrees, like 0, 15, 30, 45 and so on. Several are tall enough but wrongly positioned, e.g. Algeria.

Only one nation in Africa or Arabia is cut by more than one major meridian by which I mean a multiple 15 degrees, and that is DRC, which lies on the fifteenth and thirtieth meridians east.

Greenland is not a nation in Africa or Arabia, but it is a zone in the Madagascar Seventy (another name for my list) and the only one to lie on more than one major parallel or more than one major meridian. It lies on the forty-fifth and sixtieth parallels north and on no less than four major meridians (they are rather close together near the North Pole): the fifteenth, thirtieth, forty-fifth, and sixtieth meridians west.

There are in the Madagascar Seventy exactly fifty-five African nations, ten nations on or bordering the Arabian Peninsula (the latter I define in dubious cases as having some part of its territory south of the thirtieth meridian , and five miscellaneous areas used as zones to complete the chunks and make them have a round number of zones in them (Red Sea, Sinai, Persian Gulf, Greenland, and Iceland). This extra bit of regularity in the form of some more round numbers is purely fortuitous, barring unconscious thinking on my part. I noticed it after the list had been finished. It makes the list still more easy to learn, and still more useful once learned. It can be used as check to see if anything has been missed. Dare I say it makes the Madagascar Seventy more elegant? Could one say the Madagascar Seventy is a work of art (not necessarily a good work of art)? Making a poem have the right number of syllables on each line by using creativity is part of what makes a poem a work of art and there has been a similar use of creativity by me with making the Madagascar Seventy have the right number of zones per chunk.

The relation between the fifteenth parallel north and the Sahel natural region and the African nations that lie on the fifteenth parallel north (AKA African fifteeners) and how this can be mmemonic.

Wikipedia has a map of the Sahel region as part of the article about the Sahel. I was delighted to see that although the Sahel meanders a fair bit, it has several simple aspects to it that can be easily remembered.

1. It is an unbroken band that runs from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

2. Its average latitude is 15 degrees north or extremely near, one can reasonably say.

3. It is slowly moving south as the Sahara Desert expands southwards, which will make it a better and better fit with the fifteenth parallel as time passes for the next few centuries at least.

4. The northern limit of the Sahel is entirely to the north of the fifteenth.

5. The southern limit of the Sahel is to the south of the fifteenth for about ninety percent of its length, perhaps.

6. There just four places the Sahel’s southern border is to the north of the fifteenth and they form a symmetrical pattern that is easy to memorize: one bit on each coast, and one bit not too far from each coast.

7. The fifteeners are the zones 31–40. Since 40 is Yemen and 39 is the Red Sea, we are left with 31–38 which are the eight African nations that are fifteeners. They have in common that each one has a large percentage of its area that is inside the Sahel, with one clear exception, which is Burkina Faso. It is just touched by the Sahel and by the fifteenth in the one place, its northern tip. Furthermore, Senegal and Eritrea are rather small, and the only reason they have a big percentage of their land area as Sahel is that they are small. This means that nearly all (about 97 percent) of the Sahel is inside the middle five fifteeners that big nations: 32–36. When I say big, I mean huge. They are Mauretania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan. “The fearsome five fifteeners”, anyone?

8. These five nations have something else in common besides being about the same size i.e. huge. Each has a large amount of the Sahara Desert in one part of its northern region.

9. The northern border of the Sahel runs almost entirely (about 95 percent) inside these five going out in just two places to give a little seasonal rain to a tiny area near the southern tip of Algeria, and another at the southeastern tip of Egypt.

10. The southern border of the Sahel follows the southern borders of Mauretania, Niger, and Sudan remarkably closely, and also the norther borders of the some of the superequatorials especially that of South Sudan. Nigeria is not a superequatorial, though it is an inbetweener, but it’s northern border also marks the beginning of the Sahel with remarkable accuracy. It’s as if whoever created the borders of Nigeria and South Sudan (subfifteeners both) decided they didn’t want any of the Sahel.

Extending the Madagascar Seventy: The Canary Islands Eighty?

Wikipedia has an article called “List of sovereign states in Africa” in which are listed, besides all the African nations, ten “constituent parts of non-African states” that are considered by Wikipedia to be near Africa, and therefore perhaps (or perhaps not) will one day be handed over to African states, or be granted independence and become African states. None of them are in the Madagascar Seventy. Because, according to Wikipedia, they are ten in number they would fit nicely on the end my list, being zones 71–80. Starting at the north and going clockwise over all around Africa in an almost complete circuit around the continent as if flying an airplane, they are:

Ceuta (Spain), Melilla (Spain), Plazas de Soberania (Spain), Pelagie Islands (Italy), Socotra Archipelago (Yemen), Mayotte (France), Reunion (France), French Southern and Antarctic Lands (France), Madeira (Portugal), and the Canary Islands (Spain).