African empires and kingdoms timeline

Old Kingdom of Egypt

c. 2686 to 2181 BCE. about 505 years. capital Memphis. Egypt, North and West Africa.

The age of the pyramids. Djoser's step pyramid and the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza were built under its pharaohs. Drought and powerful provincial governors brought it down.

Kingdom of Kerma

c. 2500 to 1500 BCE. about 1,000 years. capital Kerma. Nubia and Sudan, North and West Africa.

Kingdom centred on Kerma in Upper Nubia that became a sizable, populous kingdom rivalling Egypt, with a huge mud-brick temple and royal tombs holding many human sacrifices. Its language is unknown. Thutmose I destroyed it around 1500 BCE.

New Kingdom of Egypt

c. 1550 to 1069 BCE. about 481 years. capital Thebes, Amarna, Memphis, Pi-Ramesses. Egypt, North and West Africa.

Egypt's imperial age, ruling Nubia and Canaan under pharaohs such as Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. It faded after the Sea Peoples and the loss of its empire.

Carthage

c. 814 to 146 BCE. about 668 years. capital Carthage. Maghreb, North and West Africa.

Phoenician colony from Tyre that became the leading sea power of the western Mediterranean, ruling Sardinia, western Sicily and southern Spain. After three Punic Wars Rome razed the city in 146 BCE.

Kingdom of Kush (Napatan period)

c. 785 to 270 BCE. about 515 years. capital Napata. Nubia and Sudan, North and West Africa.

Kushite kingdom whose kings Piye and Taharqa ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, with royal pyramids at El-Kurru and Nuri. After 656 BCE they ruled from Napata alone. Its language is unclassified, possibly Nilo-Saharan or Afroasiatic.

Kingdom of Kush (Meroitic period)

c. 270 BCE to 350 CE. about 619 years. capital Meroe. Nubia and Sudan, North and West Africa.

Kush ruled from Meroe, a centre of ironworking with more than 200 pyramids and its own Meroitic script, a language of uncertain family. Kandake Amanirenas fought Rome. Aksum raided it in the 4th century as it broke apart.

Kingdom of Aksum

c. 100 to 960 CE. about 860 years. capital Aksum. Horn of Africa, North and West Africa.

Red Sea trading power that minted its own coins and raised giant stone stelae. King Ezana adopted Christianity in the 4th century and Kaleb invaded Yemen around 520. Aksum declined from the 7th century and collapsed around 960.

Ghana Empire (Wagadu)

c. 300 to 1200 CE. about 900 years. capital Koumbi Saleh (probably). Sahara and Sahel, North and West Africa.

Soninke empire between the Senegal and Niger rivers that held a monopoly on gold heading north and salt heading south. Arab writers called it the land of gold. An Almoravid conquest in 1076 is now doubted, and the Sosso took Ghana by 1203.

Makuria

c. 450 to 1470 CE. about 1,020 years. capital Old Dongola, then Gebel Adda. Nubia and Sudan, North and West Africa.

Christian Nubian kingdom that repulsed an Arab army at Dongola in 652 and agreed the Baqt treaty, which kept peace with Egypt into the 13th century. Mamluk attacks, Bedouin raids and civil war reduced it to a rump state that ended in the late 15th century.

Kanem Empire

c. 700 to 1387 CE. about 687 years. capital Njimi. Lake Chad basin, North and West Africa.

Empire northeast of Lake Chad, ruled from Njimi by the Duguwa and from the 11th century by the Muslim Sayfawa, that controlled Saharan routes as far as the Fezzan. Around 1380 the Bilala took Njimi and the court moved west to Bornu.

Swahili city-states

c. 800 to 1600 CE. about 800 years. Swahili Coast and East Africa, Central and Southern Africa.

Muslim trading towns such as Kilwa, Mombasa, Malindi, Pate and Zanzibar exported gold, ivory and slaves across the Indian Ocean from the 8th century, then declined after the Portuguese arrived. Their language, Swahili, is Bantu with many Arabic loanwords.

Kilwa Sultanate

c. 957 to 1513 CE. about 556 years. capital Kilwa Kisiwani. Swahili Coast and East Africa, Central and Southern Africa.

Traditionally founded by Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi, a prince from Shiraz, Kilwa took Sofala in the late 12th century and controlled the gold trade with the Zimbabwe plateau. Francisco de Almeida's Portuguese force took the city in 1505.

Ife

c. 1000 to 1420 CE. about 420 years. capital Ile-Ife. West Africa coast and forest, North and West Africa.

Sacred Yoruba city-state, held to be the place where the world was created, whose artists cast naturalistic heads in copper alloy. Its Ooni still reigns as a ritual leader.

Kingdom of Mapungubwe

c. 1075 to 1290 CE. about 215 years. capital Mapungubwe Hill. Zambezi and Zimbabwe Plateau, Central and Southern Africa.

Near the Limpopo, its rulers settled the top of Mapungubwe Hill around 1220, above the commoners below, and exported ivory and gold to the coast. A royal burial held a wooden rhino covered in gold foil. It declined as trade routes shifted north to Great Zimbabwe.

Zagwe dynasty

c. 1137 to 1270 CE. about 133 years. capital Roha (Lalibela). Horn of Africa, North and West Africa.

Agaw dynasty that ruled the northern highlands after Aksum. King Lalibela is traditionally credited with the rock-hewn churches at his capital Roha, now named after him. Yekuno Amlak overthrew the dynasty in 1270.

Kingdom of Benin

c. 1180 to 1897 CE. about 717 years. capital Benin City (Edo). West Africa coast and forest, North and West Africa.

Edo kingdom known for vast earthen walls and cast brass art, trading with the Portuguese from 1485. A British punitive expedition captured Benin City in 1897, burning many buildings and looting the Benin Bronzes and other artefacts.

Kingdom of Zimbabwe

c. 1220 to 1450 CE. about 230 years. capital Great Zimbabwe. Zambezi and Zimbabwe Plateau, Central and Southern Africa.

Shona rulers built the dry-stone walls of Great Zimbabwe, home to about 10,000 people (traditional estimates say 18,000), and traded gold through Swahili ports such as Kilwa. Mutapa and Butua replaced it as the main powers by the 16th century.

Mali Empire

c. 1235 to 1610 CE. about 375 years. capital Disputed (traditionally Niani). Sahara and Sahel, North and West Africa.

Mandinka empire founded by Sundiata Keita, at its peak the largest in West Africa. Mansa Musa's pilgrimage of 1324 to 1326 spent enough gold to cause inflation in Egypt, and Timbuktu, annexed in 1324, became a centre of learning.

Ethiopian Empire (Solomonic dynasty)

1270 to 1974 CE. about 704 years. capital Mobile courts, Gondar, later Addis Ababa. Horn of Africa, North and West Africa.

Christian empire whose kings claimed descent from Solomon and Sheba. It survived Adal's jihad, built castles at Gondar, beat Italy at Adwa in 1896 and ended with Haile Selassie's overthrow in 1974.

Oyo Empire

c. 1300 to 1835 CE. about 535 years. capital Oyo-Ile. West Africa coast and forest, North and West Africa.

Yoruba empire whose cavalry forced Dahomey to pay tribute. After palace intrigue, Ilorin seceded in 1817, joined the Sokoto Caliphate, and destroyed the capital Oyo-Ile in 1835.

Kingdom of Buganda

c. 1300 to 1966 CE. about 666 years. capital Kampala. Great Lakes, Central and Southern Africa.

A small state on Lake Victoria's north shore that overtook Bunyoro by the 19th century under its kabaka kings. Centre of the British Uganda Protectorate from 1894, it saw its kabaka deposed by Milton Obote's government in 1966 and was restored in a ceremonial role in 1993.

Kingdom of Kongo

c. 1390 to 1914 CE. about 524 years. capital Mbanza Kongo (São Salvador). Lower Congo and Angola, Central and Southern Africa.

Founded by Lukeni lua Nimi, Kongo became a Christian kingdom after 1491 and traded with Portugal. Civil wars followed its defeat at Mbwila in 1665, and Portugal abolished the monarchy in 1914.

Mutapa Empire

c. 1430 to 1760 CE. about 330 years. Zambezi and Zimbabwe Plateau, Central and Southern Africa.

Shona tradition names Nyatsimba Mutota of Great Zimbabwe as its founder, though some historians think he may be a symbolic figure. The Mwenemutapa kings ruled the northern plateau and Zambezi valley, became Portuguese vassals in 1629 and lost unity after about 1760.

Songhai Empire

1464 to 1591 CE. about 127 years. capital Gao. Sahara and Sahel, North and West Africa.

One of the largest African empires, built by Sonni Ali and Askia Muhammad along the Niger from Gao. A Moroccan army with arquebuses and cannon routed it at Tondibi in 1591.

Kingdom of Ndongo

c. 1500 to 1671 CE. about 171 years. capital Kabasa. Lower Congo and Angola, Central and Southern Africa.

A Mbundu kingdom whose rulers held the title ngola, which gave Angola its name. It fought Portuguese invasion from 1579, and Portugal took its last fortress at Pungo Andongo in 1671.

Luba Empire

c. 1585 to 1889 CE. about 304 years. Congo Basin and Katanga, Central and Southern Africa.

A sacred kingship in the Upemba Depression whose rulers, the mulopwe, traced descent from the hero Kalala Ilunga; its founding date is debated. It expanded from 1700 to 1860, then East African slave raiders and an 1889 succession split broke it up.

Lunda Empire

c. 1665 to 1887 CE. about 222 years. capital Musumba. Congo Basin and Katanga, Central and Southern Africa.

Lunda tradition says it began when Ilunga Tshibinda, from Luba, married the Lunda royal Lueji. Under the Mwata Yamvo it became a tributary confederation stretching from Angola to the Luapula. Chokwe invaders armed with guns ended it in the late 19th century.

Rozvi Empire

c. 1683 to 1866 CE. about 183 years. capital Danamombe. Zambezi and Zimbabwe Plateau, Central and Southern Africa.

Changamire Dombo rose from the 1670s, defeated the Portuguese and Mutapa, took Butua around 1683 and drove the Portuguese from the plateau in the 1690s. Nguni invasions in the 1830s broke the state, and its last ruler surrendered to the Ndebele in 1866.

Ashanti Empire

1701 to 1901 CE. about 200 years. capital Kumasi. West Africa coast and forest, North and West Africa.

Akan empire founded by Osei Tutu around the Golden Stool, which grew on gold and slave trading. It fought Britain in a series of wars until annexation after the War of the Golden Stool in 1900.

Sokoto Caliphate

1804 to 1903 CE. about 99 years. capital Sokoto. Lake Chad basin, North and West Africa.

Islamic state founded by the Fula scholar Usman dan Fodio, which united the Hausa cities under some thirty emirates. One of the largest African states of its age, it fell to British forces in 1903.

Zulu Kingdom

1816 to 1897 CE. about 81 years. capital KwaBulawayo, later Ulundi. South Africa and Namibia, Central and Southern Africa.

Shaka turned a small chiefdom into a military kingdom with regiments armed with short stabbing spears. The Zulu destroyed a British force at Isandlwana in 1879 yet lost the war, and Britain joined Zululand to Natal in 1897.

Merina Kingdom of Madagascar

1817 to 1897 CE. about 80 years. capital Antananarivo. Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands, Central and Southern Africa.

Radama I, recognised by Britain as king of Madagascar in 1817, built an army and conquered most of the island. Ranavalona I persecuted Christians, Ranavalona II converted, and France abolished the monarchy in 1897.