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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by takeo3
I think Cairo is the most populated, biggest with the best infrastructure. However it's not "black Africa" but the unofficial capital of the Arabic world.
There are about 20 million people living there concentrated on a fairly small area, one of the biggest in the world. It's economy may be better than black African cities, still a lot of poverty, crumbling buildings, old cars and poor neighboorhoods. It's certainly the most interesting one with lots of historical buildings and sites, something which most black African cities lack.
Kinshasa is as big as Lagos, or most likely bigger (bot in surface and population) and as chaotic, and quite a lot poorer. However I think it's to become the African unofficial capital within a few years, as infrastructure and investment is growing rapidly as is the population
Nairobi is not nearly as big as these giant cities, almost 5 times smaller, and the "official" business center is quite small. The rest of the city is made of slums. (such as matare, the biggest in the world). There are a lot of international ngo's and other organisations in Nairobi, that's true. It also has a sizable expat and white population.
Johannesburg and the whole Gauteng megapolis(which includes Soweto, Centurion, Irina, Pretoria, Sandton etc) represent more than 10% of africa's GDP, so saying that Cairo and Lagos let alone Kinsasha and Nairobi are above JHB is a dumb thing to say...
3.9million (Jo'burg) and 3.1million (Nairobi), do the math!
ok, I didn't know that.
but compare to Cairo (11 million, altough Egyptians say there are 20 million, due to a lot of unofficial living) Lagos (10, 5 million,but probably a lot more) or Kinshasa (8,7 million, but probably a lot more) still small.
I found out that plenty of other African cities are also bigger than Nairobi, such Alexandria, Kartum, Casablanca, Capetown, Durban, Accra and Abijan.
Johannesburg and the whole Gauteng megapolis(which includes Soweto, Centurion, Irina, Pretoria, Sandton etc) represent more than 10% of africa's GDP, so saying that Cairo and Lagos let alone Kinsasha and Nairobi are above JHB is a dumb thing to say...
The question was "which is the nr. 1 city in Africa" not "which is the wealthiest city in Africa".
anyway according to wikipedia GDP of Cairo is bigger than GDP of Johannesburg.
I think Cairo is the most populated, biggest with the best infrastructure. However it's not "black Africa" but the unofficial capital of the Arabic world.
I'm so tired of that people using that term. So Cairo is somehow less of an African country because its not is what some people call 'Black Africa" which is code word for "true Africa" or "Poor Africa'. People should see Africa more from a regional perspective like (east, west, etc.) than Sub-saharan or putting the term "black" in front of Africa. We don't say "White Europe" or "Yellow Asia".
Anyway I chose Cairo and Johannesburg as a tie and Lagos a distant 3rd.
Last edited by gwillyfromphilly; 09-16-2011 at 10:36 AM..
I'm so tired of that people using that term. So Cairo is somehow less of an African country because its not is what some people call 'Black Africa" which is code word for "true Africa" or "Poor Africa'. People should see Africa more from a regional perspective like (east, west, etc.) than Sub-saharan or putting the term "black" in front of Africa. We don't say "White Europe" or "Yellow Asia".
Anyway I chose Cairo and Johannesburg as a tie and Lagos a distant 3rd.
I see what you are saying but the simple reality is that Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya have a whole lot more in common with the Middle East than Sub saharan africa...They are Muslims first, Arab (mainly Egypt and Libya, less so the Maghreb countries) second, and African a very distant third.
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