Arusha, Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania) was noted for its cool, healthy climate, proximity to scenic Mt. Meru, and being a center for tourism. However, it also was known for something else: its midpoint location on the rather grandly named Great North Road which ran the length of the African continent. A left turn set you on the path for South Africa. Turn right and you were headed for Egypt.
Probably named for the highway that has linked England and Scotland since the early middle ages, Africa’s Great North Road was originally proposed around 1890 by a number of British Imperialists, including Cecil Rhodes, who was so instrumental in Great Britain’s annexation of large areas of Africa that North and South Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe) are named for him. (He is less well regarded these days as shown by the recent removal of his statue at Oxford University because it was felt to be symbolic of imperialism and racism.)
The Great North Road was meant to link Britain’s possessions in the eastern part of the continent in order to increase the empire’s economic and political power in Africa. At the time it was a visionary concept, seemingly unconcerned with any obstacles that might exist, such as Germany’s increasing control over Tanganyika through which the road would have to pass (see below).
Other obstacles included the sheer length of the road–approximately 6,392 miles (10,228 km), or more than twice the distance across the USA–and the fact that, in the 1890’s, very little was known about the areas through which it would pass. The magnitude of the undertaking was demonstrated in 1924-26 by the first successful journey from Cape Town to Cairo which took a year and four months (The first attempt, in 1913, ended when the expedition leader was killed by a leopard in Rhodesia).
Also, financial resources were limited; Britain expected its various colonies, protectorates and trusteeships, including those through which the road would pass, to be largely self-supporting, and some, such as Tanganyika, with few resources to generate revenue, were quite poor. Furthermore, their administrators often had higher priorities, as for instance, those in Tanganyika and Kenya who emphasized east-west railways linking the interior of their colonies to seaports on the Indian Ocean. The Great North Road’s lack of urgency was tellingly revealed in this quote from a Tanganyika government publication in 1955–By and large, before the 1939-45 war, the problem of communication was not as pressing or important a matter as it is today.
Consequently, the Great North Road was more an idealized concept than on-the-ground reality. Instead of being constructed all at once and all at one go, progress was faster in densely populated areas but less so in lightly settled areas where road standards evolved, improving over time. Some examples of how the latter might have occurred are presented below:
Consequently, the final all-weather links of the Great North Road were still incomplete when Sudan became independent in 1956 and Great Britain’s empire began to dissolve.
However, the dream lives on, only now in the minds of independent African nations who realize the importance of cross-border trade in improving their economies. Thus, the Great North Road, in the form of the Pan-African Highway, still exists, implemented under the auspices of international agencies and the countries through which it passes.
That said, it should be noted that road conditions in South Sudan are still frequently impassible during the rains, forcing the highway to be routed through Ethiopia (see map below). However, newly independent South Sudan is improving its road system, making it likely that sometime in the not too distant future, the original dream of a Great North Road linking Great Britain’s contiguous (but now independent) dominions in Africa may finally be realized–well over hundred hears after its conception.
Thanks for this Dennis, I certainly am aware of travel/road issues in Africa. Didn’t know the involved history and all so thanks for this. Dennis
Thanks. Yes, it was always sort of fun to know I wasn’t traveling on just any old kind of road but rather The Great North Road!
Dennis, That was very very interesting. I never heard before of the Great North Road of Africa, although i am not surprised by the concept. Part of the road from Dakar to Lagos is Ghana’s so-called “Coastal Highway” which is now partly a two-to-four lane divided highway, and partly is merely a two lane paved road. However, all of it is well paved and comfortable for driving. Ghana is currently attempting to complete all of it as a 4-6 lane divided highway, However, they are getting other people to pay for those portions that are not yet constructed. So far, the various paved and well-darained highways have been built with various payees including the U.S. and Japan.
I think that’s probably the case with South Sudan and Ethiopia, too. Some years back, either USAID or the UN gave Kenya lots of bucks to pave the highway across northern Kenya to the Ethiopian border. From what I heard, not a penny actually was spent on doing this. Instead, the funds went into the pockets of well-connected politicians. However, the next attempt some years later apparently was successful so you can now drive on tarmac from Nairobi to Ethiopia.
Dennis, when I was in the Peace Corps in the early 1960s, several of my British colleagues in the Ghana Geological Suvey, Ben Ainsworth from Devon, England and Gordon House from Ireland, drove a vehicle from Lagos through northern Nigeria, Niger and Algeria to Europe over the Sahara Desert. They continued their driving through Spain and France and ended up skiing in Switzerland, before heading to Britain. Despite the fact that they carried extra tires, spare parts including an extra engine and jerrycans full of both petrol and spare water, they had no problems and didn’t even get a puncture. In June 1965 I visited Ben in Devon and he described the entire adventure to me. I remember talking with my Peace Corps Geologist colleague, Dave Behnke, about driving a Citroen Deux Cheval across the Sahara, We discussed it thoroughly, however, we ended up not doing so. I also remember the story of two ladies who planned to travel north from Timbuctu though Algeria to North Afrrica’s Mediteranean Coast, The road through the Sahara was marked by 55 gallon drums, and so were the boundaries between Timbuctu and adjacent provinces of Mali. Unfortunately the two women started following the provincial boundary instead of the road across the Sahara, ran out of fuel and water, and were found some weeks later..
Fascinating! I hope the two ladies who mistakenly followed the provincial boundaries were still alive when found. I wonder whether that area is now too dangerous to enter due to Muslim terror (if that’s the right word) groups active there.
I have never heard of this before – thank you for sharing!! The extent of the project from the square footage to the various countries and politics is astronomical to consider.
Glad you liked it.
Dennis, This is so interesting. Thanks again for sharing
Interesting. As you might expect, I was interested in the picture of road B2 between Dar and the Rufiji mto. Is that a recent picture? I was thinking that road was upgraded significantly before they built the bridge over the river at Ikwiriri.
I forgot to note the date of the photo. I think it was about twenty years ago. Yes, I expect the road has been significantly updated since the photo. Thanks for reminding me.
Except for the various bush road wanderings of geologists. like me, Ghana’s roads are considered pretty good. In 1963 through 1965. I remember other Ghana PCVs (mainly Teachers) telling me that when they traveled to other West African countries by road, they always knew when they had returned to Ghana because the roads became smooth, and that was more than 50 years ago. These days, Ghanaian roads are generally ok, but one must expect some surprise pot holes. However, the bush roads remain very bad bad, and that is where we geologists and you wildlife husbandry people go to work. Also, I may note, that in the 1960s, there was very limited traffic on the African roads because there were not many vehicles, so they remained in good condition for a long time. Presently, there are so many imported used cars in Ghana, that the roads are almost never empty. When I worked for the IAEA in Uganda in 1985, we visited Fort Portal on the edge of the Ruwenzori Mountains in western Uganda, and drove down to the Western Lake Albert Rift Valley attempting to locate a previously known Radioactive anomaly. This was in the post-Idi Amin (and second coming of Milton Obote) days. On the road down into the Lake Albert Rift, we noted that several local farmers had piled “matoke” (cooking bananas) along the road, obviously awaiting transport to Fort Portal and beyond. After searching for the R/A anomaly in the Rift zone. We returned up the same road hours later, and saw the same piles of bananas, still awaiting transport. There simply weren’t enough transport vehicles available in those days. These days, I assume there are may more transport vehicles available, and the local farmers no longer wait several days for transport.
I wrote something earlier here but neglected to click on “reply,” first. Hope you don’t get the same message twice. It’s interesting about how little Ghanian and Ugandan highways were used years ago, allowing them to remain in good condition for so much longer than they do now. Also interesting is that bananas in Uganda could remain piled along the roads for long periods without being stolen. Were they just so abundant they didn’t tempt anyone or were people just more honest back then?
The Rift Zone was a very rich and fertile place for farming, and local people would grow coffee, tea, vegetables, and of course, “matoke” which was their food staple. The small population in the rift zone were all growing matoke, and therefore it didn’t seem like a crop that some one needed to steal. Besides, farm houses were located up and down the rift and one could clearly see the piles of bananas along the road when awaiting some locxal transport. i suppose the local farmer could hike up or down to the vehicle while the bananas were being loaded. In any case, during the half day between our passing along the road, no matoke had been picked up. I mght also note that I don’t remember seeing any other vehicles along the rift road or down in the Lake Albert Rift Zone. Uganda was quite vehicle poor at that time.
This incredibly ambitious road project is a good piece of evidence that not all of imperialism was bad. Motives for building the road – imperialism – maybe bad. But establishing trade was a good thing. And having the road exist, post-colonialism — that’s good too! Zaire, where I worked, had basically no decent roads. The roads being constructed in Rwanda by the Chinese in the mid 1980s were engineering feats!
The Great North Road passes through my family’s Land in Kiambu, Kenya. I would hear stories of a Great road that will one day be built in our shamba growing up. Though greatly ambitious, i hope it comes to fruition.
Hi, Thanks for your memory. Who knows? Perhaps that road will indeed be built one day.