We visit Nigeria by Africa is home to three of the world's megacities — cities with populations of over 10 million — and the continent's urban population is set to double by 2050 from its current 1.2 billion inhabitants. Such growth not only means a strain on resources, but also concerns over how development will take place, and whether or not it will further contribute to climate change.
This article describes the history of Lagos from the 1950s to today, and how it has changed dramatically over the past seventy years.
Cairo has ancient roots, and this article describes the history of the Egyptian city from ancient times to the 21st century.
Kinshasa is the capital and largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is the third largest city in Africa after Cairo and Lagos and the second largest French-speaking city in the world other than Paris, France. Formerly known as Leopoldville, it was founded and named by Henry Morton Stanley in 1881 in honor of King Leopold II of Belgium who controlled the vast territory known as the Congo Free State. Kinshasa is located on the southern bank of the Congo River. With Brazzaville on the North bank of the Congo River, Kinshasa is the only capital city that faces another national capital. The combined population of the two capitals is approximately twelve million, with 10,076,099 in Kinshasa and suburbs in 2009 and an estimated 1.2 million inhabitants in its northern neighbor in 2007.
This guide has a timeline of development, a list of important industries, interactive map, and describes how important Lagos is to Nigeria.
Cairo is the capital of Egypt, a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest city in Africa. Cairo has long been the cultural center of the Arab world. It is an ancient city on the banks of the Nile River.
Johannesburg is the largest single metropolitan contributor to the national economic product of South Africa. This article provides economic data for the city and lists the city's main industries.
Although home to only 13% of the DRC's population, Kinshasa accounts for 85% of the Congolese economy as measured by gross domestic product. A 2004 investigation found 70% of inhabitants employed informally, 17% in the public sector, 9% in the formal private sector, and 3% other, of a total 976,000 workers. Most new jobs are classified as informal.
Aerial view of Lagos
Source: Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center
Describes the major attractions of the city and the various things to do in Johannesburg.
Describes the major attractions of the city and the various things to do in Kinshasa.
Lagos is a megacity struggling to cope with massive population growth (3.1 million added in just 8 years!). Urbanisation has led to millions of people leaving the rural areas to come in search for a better quality of life in Lagos. However, at times the resources and infrastructure cannot keep up- , the electricity supply cuts out, the roads are congested, basic sewage works cannot cope, and there are high crime rates. Despite these problems people are still moving to Lagos in their thousands in the process of rural to urban migration: Why?
With little habitable land, deepening poverty and dwindling supplies of water, the future looks bleak. And there is no sign of a slowdown.
Egypt’s fast-growing population hit 100 million Tuesday, the official statistics agency announced, presenting a pressing problem for an already overburdened country with limited resources.
Once a site of fishing villages, Kinshasa became a bustling city with a population of 7,843,000 in 2007, the 14th most populous city in the world. The combined conurbation of Kinshasa-Brazzaville had nearly nine million inhabitants. These population estimates take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS. More than 50 percent of the population are aged under 22 years and few are over 50. Inhabitants are colloquially known as "Kinois."
The major problem in Lagos is the growth of squatter settlements also known as SLUMS. These slums come with many issues for people including the lack of planned access to clean water and sanitation systems, poor health, lack of education, unemployment and the prospect of crime.
The government's destruction of the homes of slum dwellers in Cairo in 2015 highlighted the appalling conditions in which millions in the city live.
This article entry describes the housing crisis in Egypt post WW2 and how Egyptian residents and the government have responded to the crisis.
On one side of the water, hand-carved wooden canoes navigate the marshy canals of a crowded fishing village. Unpainted cement houses line muddy dirt streets where women sit at stands, selling the day's catch. On the other side, where the fishermen used to cast their nets, a posh private city is being raised from the bottom of the Congo River. Pumping millions of cubic meters of sand, the British hedge fund Hawkwood Properties is developing 1600 acres of water to become a tranquil residential haven complete with swimming pools, schools, grocery stores and a sports complex. A more striking portrayal of income disparity in Congo than Kinshasa's Cite du Pecheur (Fisherman's City) and the upcoming La Cite du Fleuve, (City of the River), would be difficult to come by.
Billed as smart city in the desert, boasting greenery and luxury housing, the Egyptian government is supporting the construction of a new capital city in Egypt in an attempt to wipe away the problems of Cairo, but how many people in Cairo will actually be able to afford the new capital city?
Just north of Johannesburg’s flashy suburbs lies Diepsloot. The sprawling township is a congregation of wooden and corrugated iron shacks.
As a country urbanizes, geographic differences in living standards tend to converge. In Kinshasa, however, lack of infrastructure coupled with the city’s flood-prone morphology and poor urban management contribute to the spatial, economic and social exclusion of much of Kinshasa’s population.
Every day almost 9,000 tons of garbage accumulate in Kinshasa. The Congolese capital does not have a functioning garbage collection system. Consequences for the health of the "Kinois" are catastrophic.
UN says the country will face ‘absolute water scarcity’ by 2025, but for some locations the tragedy has already arrived, with thousands of people left without regular access to water every day.
With rapid population growth, limited agricultural land and recent challenges to its majority share of Nile waters by upstream states, the United Nations now says Egypt could be water scarce by 2025.
Lagos is a city surrounded by water, yet there is none to drink. Access to formal clean water is abysmally low, with the majority of Lagos residents relying on the informal sector comprised of wells, boreholes, rivers and rain water.
Johannesburg Water supplies 1.6 billion litres of potable water per day, procured from Rand Water, through a water distribution network of 12 288 km, 127 reservoirs and water towers, and 37 water pump stations. The company employs 2 716 people and functions within six operating regions, with ten network depots and six wastewater treatment plants. Wastewater is then collected and reticulated via 11 710 km of wastewater networks and 38 sewer pump stations. Johannesburg Water treats 926 Ml per day of sewage at its six wastewater treatment works (WWTW), which includes two of its biogas-to-energy plants, where methane gas is converted to energy.
In Kinshasa, the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the vast majority of the population has access to “improved” water. This means sources such as piped networks, covered wells, boreholes, or protected springs, which are constructed to protect water from outside contamination, are widely available. Yet it is increasingly clear that “improved” water is not enough; when the 2017 DRC WASH Poverty Diagnostic tested water quality in over 1,600 households in Kinshasa, water samples from nearly 40% of improved sources were still contaminated with fecal E. Coli Bacteria at point of use.