Until the 19th century, most of Europe's settlements in Africa were ports, forts, and trading centers--many of them built to hold Africans captive before shipping them to America as slaves. These settlements were all located on Africa's coasts, so the political borders of Africa didn't really change as a result of European activity until the late 1800s.

Few Europeans ventured into the interior of Africa, and those who did often did not survive the trip. The continent gained a reputation as extremely dangerous, and its western coast was sometimes called the White Man's Grave because of diseases like malaria and yellow fever. Europeans gave the territories on the west coast of Africa names like Negroland, as you can see on the map below from 1736, and they mostly avoided these regions.

For Europeans, the most valuable ports in Africa were located in three areas: along the Suez Canal between Egypt and the Middle East, at the southern tip of Africa, and along Africa's western coast. These coastal regions were given names like the Gold Coast and the Ivory Coast by Europeans focused on exploiting the resources that these areas possessed.

The names assigned to parts of Africa indicate how little Europeans knew or cared about the established cultures there. The names also showed how uninterested Europeans were in establishing permanent settlements in Africa. Consider this contrast: While the American colonies along the southeastern coast of North America were used to produce Europe's tobacco and cotton, the region was never called the Tobacco Coast or the Cotton Coast.

Learn more about the most important coastal settlements in Africa in the slideshow below.

The first European settlements were located on uninhabited islands, like the islands of Cape Verde. They served as forts and rest stops on the long voyage to Asia. Cape Town, on the southern tip of Africa, was one of the earliest European settlements on the continent. Foreign traders imported slaves and foreign crops and made the area a busy economic center.   The Suez Canal, located in Egypt, connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, and eventually, the Indian Ocean. If you are in a ship, passing through the Suez Canal is a much shorter trip to India than sailing all the way around Africa. The width of the canal is artificial, not natural. It was completed in 1869, and the French and British fought over its use for years.