Map of Africa If Every Separatist Movement Succeeded

The other day I found the coolest map of Africa ever. Created by the Guardian, it shows the map of Africa if every separatist movement succeeded in gaining independence/sovereignty. Many of the movements I've known about, studied, or even taught in African history, such as the repeated attempts to divide Somalia, the extremely contentious issue of Western Sahara "in" Morocco, and Nigeria's already divided North/South government and religion.

Here are screen shots, but you are also highly encouraged to go to the actual website here because then you can put your mouse over the arrows and see more details on all of the movements after you've gone to the second screen.

AFRICA, right now!

And Africa with new borders, assuming all movements got their sovereignty today:

Sorry I cut the bottom off, but don't worry, South Africa doesn't have any movements of note

Ta-dah! How freakin' neat, you might say, and yes you would be right.

Random Kate Thoughts: I showed this map to my students in African Politics class the other day. A very loud 30 minute conversation ensued. Several students had not even realized there were separatist movements in their own countries. Of course, it is not generally in the interest of a national government to publicize or allow the publicity of movements trying to leave it. Also, yes of course some of these movements are more serious than others. Western Sahara has been recognized as a country by 82 countries and the African Union, so it is more of a serious movement than the Lunda Kingdom of Angola, of which all we seem to know is that it "has a facebook page." Most of this chaotic map is the result of Europeans drawing lines in the 1880s and deciding they wanted to own hunks of land, regardless of who lived there and whether they some day wanted to be singing the same anthem. Before you get too cocky, America, remember that you too have a separatist movement--the SOUTH (oh, and Puerto Rico, Cascadia, Vermont, Hawaii, Lakota, Alaska, and last but certainly not least Texas).