Shakara, one of my favorite blogs on African affairs, had an interesting cartographical post last year which included among other things, a map of the proposed trans-African highway initiative. The plan itself is intriguing when redrawn into a network diagram as I have done above.

A broader dynamic should be considered too in the development of this network: the potential evolution of Africa into an automotive culture. That’s something that has historically been facilitated and accelerated by expressway construction.

Toward that, I’ve also included a little visualization illustrating the rapid growth of automobile manufacturing in Africa over the past couple of years. Most domestic automobile production is still transpiring in Egypt and South Africa, but new production facilities are expanding in places like Kenya and Nigeria.

This is to say nothing about the flood of imported ultra-cheap compacts that China has unleashed on African markets (a subject for another graphic perhaps). In many cases the first new car is being purchased by African families due to Great Wall mobiles.