Effects of Geography and Climate
Additionally, it must be mentioned that, as is this case today, the Congo River and its tributaries, as well as climatic conditions in general, play a monstrous role in shaping the lives of the inhabitants of the Congo. The rivers are and were tremendously important to regional trade and provide a vast natural network for such activities, in addition to providing a source of food and water (which is needless to say, abundant) to the population.
It must also be mentioned that the climate is a major force in the Congo, which is made up primarily of tropical rainforest that sees some of the highest annual rainfall in the world. This high amount of rainfall makes it difficult to sustain agriculture, and subsequently a large population because the soil is simply too watered-down and prone to periodic floods (which can ruin crops, of course) to produce large quantities of food. For this reason, the population of the Congo has maintained a low population in addition to an extremely low population density.
Also, much has been made about the large number of "primitive" hunter-gatherer groups that inhabit the Congo, especially the Pygmy population. However, the reason for this particular life-style being so prominent in the Congo is geographical and climatic: the area is simply not capable of producing a large amount of food from agriculture, and as a result, a portion of the population has continued to hunt and gather because it is a much more sustainable way of life.
Read more about this topic: Early Congolese History
Famous quotes containing the words effects of, effects, geography and/or climate:
“One of the effects of a safe and civilised life is an immense oversensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. Generosity is as painful as meanness, gratitude as hateful as ingratitude.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“If I had any doubts at all about the justice of my dislike for Shakespeare, that doubt vanished completely. What a crude, immoral, vulgar, and senseless work Hamlet is. The whole thing is based on pagan vengeance; the only aim is to gather together as many effects as possible; there is no rhyme or reason about it.”
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Ghosts, we hope, may be always with us—that is, never too far out of the reach of fancy. On the whole, it would seem they adapt themselves well, perhaps better than we do, to changing world conditions—they enlarge their domain, shift their hold on our nerves, and, dispossessed of one habitat, set up house in another. The universal battiness of our century looks like providing them with a propitious climate ...”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)