Chad Essay, Research Paper

My report is about Chad, it is a large country in the north-central part of Africa. These are some of the interesting statistics I learned about Chad. The republic of Chad is the largest country of the former French Equatorial Africa. It occupies 1,284,000 km and had a population of 4,752,000. It is bounded on the north by Libya, on the east of Sudan, on the south of by the Central African Republic, on the southwest by Cameroon, and on the west by Nigeria. The capital is N?Diamena, formerly known as Fort-Lamey, a city with a population of 303,000.

Most of Chad is large basin bordered by mountains and highlands in the north, east, and south. A vast Inland Sea once filled the depression, of which Lake Chad is remnant. Neolithic rock paintings exist in the northern mountains, and the archaeological evidence around the lake and its two main tributaries, the Logone and Shari rivers, suggests the existence of a settled civilization as early as the 9th century. Chad has three climatic zones. The north is arid, and vegetation is limited to scattered oases, the south is tropical, with flora characterized by light woodlands and grasslands. In the semiarid middle region, at the latitude of N?diamena, the drier grasslands give way to thronbush. The rainy season lasts from May to October and is somewhat longer in the south, with annual precipitation increasing form 300 to 1,270mm or 12 to 50 inches, between the capital and the far south. In the northern Saharan region, rainfall is rare, with less than 25mm or 1 inch annually. Temperatures range from 27 degrees Celsius to around 30 degrees Celsius or 80 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Animal life is varied, and Lake Chad and the Shari and Logone rivers are among the richest sources of fish in Africa.

The many different ethnic groups in Chad include the Sara peoples in the south, the Eulani, Barma, Kanembu, Arabs, and the Maba in the middle zone, the nomadic Teda, Daza, and Tubu in the north, and the Kotoko along the rivers. Most of the people in the norhtern two-thirds of the country, or about half the total population, are Muslims. In the tropical south the population is divided between adherents of Christianity and traditional African religions. Both Arabic and Sara serve as trade languages, but French is the official language.

The population of Chad is overwhelming rural with a very low density, particularly in the northern half. The scattered population and the country?s sheer size, along with its poverty, have hindered the development of education and medical care. In addition, animosity exists between northerners and southerners as a result of Muslim slave-raiding in the south before the French conquest in the early 20th century. It has been impossible, therefore, to mold a common national identity since independence, and chronic guerrilla movements threaten the government.

The economy of Chad id based primarily on livestock raising and subsistence agriculture, although the former was severely damaged by drought on the Sahel region of the north in the 1970s. Cotton is the major commercial crop among farmers, profit yield makes cotton an unpopular crop among farmers, the government insists on its cultivation because it is a source of export earnings. The northern edge of Lake Chad is extremely fertile, but civil war, recurrent drought, and inadequate transportation facilities have severely hampered development efforts. There are few proven mineral resources small amounts of petroleum are extracted, and natron, a sodium carbonate used as salt is mined in the lake region. The Aozou strip in the north, believed to be rich in uranium, has been occupied by Libya since 1973. These are some of the interesting statistics I gathered from sources on the country of Chad through this I hope that you have learned some new facts on this interesting country.