Kingdoms of Africa

c. 2,500 BCE – 2 Mäskäräm 1967 EC65 items

africaempires
Mansa Musa of Mali enthroned with a gold nugget, and a veiled rider on a camel, between the Atlas Mountains and the Niger, from the Catalan Atlas, 1375. Attributed to Abraham Cresques. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Mansa Musa of Mali enthroned with a gold nugget, and a veiled rider on a camel, between the Atlas Mountains and the Niger, from the Catalan Atlas, 1375. Attributed to Abraham Cresques. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Four and a half thousand years of African kingdoms

From the mud-brick temple of Kerma on the Nile to the fall of Benin City in 1897, this timeline follows the states that ruled across the continent: Kush and Aksum in the north-east, Ghana, Mali and Songhai in the western Sahel, Kanem–Bornu around Lake Chad, Great Zimbabwe and Kilwa in the south-east, Benin, Kongo and Asante in the west and centre. Most of their dates are approximate, and the notes say so: a year or a century is given wherever a day would be invented.

How it is built

  • Every kingdom is a band, and many overlap: read across to see who was ruling where at the same time.

  • Where a kingdom’s reach is roughly known, its band carries a coarse map region. Mansa Musa’s hajj is drawn as a route.

  • Dates keep the calendar of their source: Islamic (hijri) for the Arabic writers who described Ghana and Mali, Julian for Portuguese days before 1582, and the Ethiopian calendar for Adwa and the end of the Solomonic dynasty.

Filter by tag to follow one thread: gold, trade, religion, women, slavery, colonialism. The slavery thread gives figures only with their source and range.

There is complete security in their country. Neither traveller nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence. — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa on Mali, 1352–1353, translated by H. A. R. Gibb

Items

  1. Kingdom of Kerma

    ≈ 999 years · Western Deffufa, Kerma

  2. Western Deffufa

    Western Deffufa, Kerma

  3. ≈ 650 years

  4. Kingdom of Kush

    ≈ 1,128 years · Kush under Meroë, along the Nile and the Butana (approximate)

  5. Kushite pharaohs

    ≈ 88 years

  6. Piye conquers Egypt

    Memphis, Egypt

  7. Royal burials move to Meroë

    Royal pyramids of Meroë

  8. Meroitic script

  9. Amanirenas fights Rome

    Royal City of Meroë

  10. Kingdom of Aksum

    ≈ 909 years · Aksum’s highland core and Red Sea coast (approximate)

  11. Adulis in the Periplus

    Adulis, Red Sea coast

  12. Aksum strikes its own coins

    Stelae field, Aksum

  13. Great Stele of Aksum

    Stelae field, Aksum

  14. Ezana turns Christian

    Stelae field, Aksum

  15. Ezana’s campaign on the Nile

    Confluence of the Nile and the Atbara

  16. Kaleb invades Ḥimyar

    Ẓafār, capital of Ḥimyar

  17. Ghana (Wagadu)

    ≈ 540 years · Ghana’s core between the Senegal and the Niger (approximate)

  18. The first hijra

    Stelae field, Aksum

  19. Kilwa Sultanate

    ≈ 505 years · Kilwa Kisiwani

  20. Kanem–Bornu (Sayfawa dynasty)

    ≈ 770 years · Kanem and Bornu, around Lake Chad (approximate)

  21. Al-Bakri describes Ghana

  22. The Almoravids and Ghana

    Koumbi Saleh, Mauritania

  23. Great Zimbabwe

    ≈ 250 years · The Zimbabwe plateau, between the Zambezi and the Limpopo (approximate)

  24. Kingdom of Benin

    ≈ 696 years · Benin at its widest, sixteenth century (approximate)

  25. Mapungubwe

    70 years · Mapungubwe Hill

  26. Rock-hewn churches of Lalibela

    Rock-hewn churches, Lalibela

  27. Mali Empire

    ≈ 365 years · Mali at its widest, fourteenth century (approximate)

  28. Battle of Kirina

    Near Kirina, on the upper Niger (the field is not known)

  29. Kurukan Fuga

    Kangaba, near the Kurukan Fuga clearing

  30. Golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe

    Mapungubwe Hill

  31. Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia

    ≈ 704 years

  32. Abu Bakr sails into the Atlantic

  33. Reign of Mansa Musa

    ≈ 25 years

  34. Husuni Kubwa

    Husuni Kubwa, Kilwa Kisiwani

  35. Kebra Nagast

  36. Mansa Musa’s hajj

    ≈ 11 months, 24 days · Mansa Musa’s hajj by Walata, Tuat and Cairo (approximate; the start is not known)

  37. Mansa Musa in Cairo

    Cairo

  38. Djinguereber Mosque

    Djinguereber Mosque, Timbuktu

  39. Ibn Battuta at Kilwa

    Kilwa Kisiwani

  40. Great Enclosure

    Great Enclosure, Great Zimbabwe

  41. Ife heads

    Ile-Ife

  42. Ibn Battuta at the court of Mali

  43. Kingdom of Kongo

    ≈ 524 years · Kongo about 1500, from the Congo River to the Dande (approximate)

  44. Catalan Atlas

  45. Ewuare the Great

    Oba’s palace, Benin City

  46. Songhai Empire

    ≈ 126 years · Songhai at its widest, sixteenth century (approximate)

  47. Sunni Ali takes Timbuktu

    Timbuktu

  48. Birni Ngazargamu

    Birni Ngazargamu, Yobe

  49. Portuguese reach Benin

    Oba’s palace, Benin City

  50. Nzinga a Nkuwu baptised

    Mbanza Kongo (São Salvador)

  51. Tomb of Askia

    Tomb of Askia, Gao

  52. Atlantic slave trade

    ≈ 365 years

  53. Portuguese sack Kilwa

    Kilwa Kisiwani

  54. Benin stops selling men

    Oba’s palace, Benin City

  55. Afonso I writes to João III

    Mbanza Kongo (São Salvador)

  56. Battle of Wayna Daga

    Wayna Daga, east of Lake Tana

  57. Battle of Tondibi

    Near Tondibi, north of Gao

  58. Njinga at Luanda

    Luanda

  59. Battle of Mbwila

    Near Mbwila (Ambuila)

  60. Asante Empire

    ≈ 200 years · Asante at its widest, early nineteenth century (approximate)

  61. The Golden Stool

    Kumasi

  62. Kimpa Vita burned

  63. Berlin Conference

    Reich Chancellery, Wilhelmstraße 77, Berlin

  64. Battle of Adwa

    Hills around Adwa, Tigray

  65. British take Benin City

    Oba’s palace, Benin City

  66. War of the Golden Stool

    Kumasi