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These cities are the hubs of Africa’s economic boom
South Africa is no longer the only place on the continent that has urban wealth clusters

- The wealth of Africans is projected to grow by a third over the next decade
- The continent's wealth is agglomerating in a number of urban clusters, in the south, east and west
- Wealth is collected in a few other places - isolated capitals and mini-clusters stretching from Morocco down to Angola
Over the past decade, 19,000 Africans have become dollar millionaires. Africa's combined wealth has grown by 13% - 3% just in the last year alone. The combined individual wealth of all Africans is $2.3 trillion today – by the end of 2027, it will have increased by a third to $3.1 trillion. Clearly, it's boom time in Africa.
This map offers a revealing perspective on the wealth of the continent. The African subsoil may be resource-rich in many places, but as elsewhere in the world, it's in the great urban centres that money accumulates. And people too: by 2100, 13 of the world's 20 biggest megacities will be in Africa.
South Africa still boasts the main concentration of wealth in Africa, but no longer the only one.Image: Visual Capitalist
And this overview of Africa's richest cities, based on the The AfrAsia Bank Africa Wealth Report 2018, indicates where clusters of wealthy cities are developing across the continent, as well as showing a few more isolated locations of money aggregation.
- Long the most developed nation on the continent, South Africa – with four of Africa's ten richest cities – continues to be the economic engine of Africa's southern half. With a total GDP of $722 billion, South Africa as a whole continues to be the continent's wealthiest country, but on a per-capita basis it comes second after the tiny island nation of Mauritius ($32,700).
- The East African economy is dominated by a string of wealthy cities, from Uganda's capital Kampala via Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's biggest city.
- In West Africa, a similar transnational conglomeration runs from Abidjan in Ivory Coast over Ghana's Accra to Lagos and Abidjan in Nigeria.
- In Morocco, Casablanca's wealth is flanked by that of Tangier and Marrakesh. In Egypt, Cairo dwarfs but not completely outshines Alexandria.
- The 'isolates', in descending order, are four capitals: Luanda (Angola), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Windhoek (Namibia) and Lusaka (Zambia).
Here are Africa's 10 wealthiest cities:
1. Johannesburg (South Africa): $276 billion
Jo'burg city centre.
Image: Brand South Africa
Fittingly, Africa's richest city was built on gold – on the Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886, to be exact. It's the commercial capital of South Africa and the wider region.
2. Cape Town (South Africa): $155 billion
View of Cape Town's City Bowl from Lion's Head, with Signal Hill and Cape Flats in the distance
Image: Martin Power, CC BY-SA 3.0
The city with Africa's highest prime residential rates, at around $6,100 per square metre (similar to DC or Berlin) also is an important hub for financial services, retail and tourism.
3. Cairo (Egypt): $140 billion
Rooftops of Cairo
Image: Luc Legay, CC BY-SA 2.0
Real estate, financial services and construction are some of the key sectors in this city of 9 million, the biggest metropolis in the Middle East.
4. Lagos (Nigeria): $108 billion
The Golden Plaza in Ikoyi, Lagos. On the left the Falomo Bridge to Victoria Island
Image: Ulf Ryttgens, CC BY-SA 1.0
It may no longer be the country's capital, Lagos still is the gateway for 80% of Nigeria's exports – and the centre of the burgeoning film industry, a.k.a. Nollywood. At 21 million inhabitants (2016 est.), it's Africa's largest metropolis, as well as one of the world's fastest-growing cities.
5. Durban (South Africa): $55 billion
Indian Ocean beach at Durban
Image: Brand South Africa
Subtropical Durban is South Africa's third-biggest city (after Johannesburg and Cape Town), second-biggest manufacturing hub and biggest port, as well as a major tourist destination. Durban's Gateway Theatre of Shopping is Africa's biggest mall. It has 12,000 parking slots, 390 stores, 90 restaurants, more than a dozen movie theatres (including an IMAX theatre), a skate park designed by Tony Hawk, and the highest fountain in Africa.
6. Nairobi (Kenya): $54 billion
Nairobi skyline
Image: © Sam Stearman
Kenya's capital and largest city (metro area: 7 million) Nairobi is also known as the Green City in the Sun. Founded in 1899 by the British as a rail depot, the city today is home to thousands of Kenyan businesses, as well as the Nairobi Securities Exchange, Africa's 4th-largest stock exchange; and regional hub for hundreds of multinationals.
7. Luanda (Angola): $49 billion
View of Luanda's harbour, with the Restinga peninsula in the background
Image: OneVillage Initiative, CC BY-SA 2.0
Luanda is the biggest city, major port and capital of Angola – and its metro area is home to one in three Angolans. While the majority of Luandans live in poverty, the booming oil and gas industry has created huge wealth for a minority (as well as a boom in banking and building). Luanda is one of the world's most expensive cities for ex-pats, in part because of high import tariffs imposed to help pay for diversifying the economy.
8. Pretoria (South Africa): $48 billion
Pretoria's central business district, seen from Muckleneuk Hill
Image: Petrus Potgieter/public domain
The administrative capital of South Africa and the hub of the wider Tshwane metro area, Pretoria is also a centre for academia and R&D, as well as commerce and industry, including metalworks to car factories.
9. Casablanca (Morocco): $42 billion
Dawn over Casablanca
Image: Achalhikarim, CC BY-SA 4.0
Officially ad-Dar al-Bayda in Arabic but informally known as Kaza, Casablanca is the largest city in the entire Maghreb region (metro area: 7 million), and its economic hub. It is important both as port city and financial centre. Major Moroccan and multinational companies are headquartered here rather than in the political capital Rabat.
10. Accra (Ghana): $38 billion
Independence Arch in Accra
Image: George Appiah, CC BY 2.0
A merger of coastal settlements around British, Dutch and Danish coastal forts, Accra in 1957 became the capital of sub-Saharan Africa's first independent nation. Today, it is a centre for manufacturing, marketing, finance, insurance, and transportation.
Over the next decade, the AfrAsia Bank's report expects growth to remain strong in South Africa, Angola, Morocco, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Nigeria – not coincidentally countries hosting many of the hubs shown on this map.
But the strongest growth projections apply to some of the smaller countries in Africa: Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana and Mauritius.
Map found here at Visual Capitalist.
Strange Maps #941
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Scientists find 16 'ultra-black' fish species that absorb 99.9% of light
These alien-like creatures are virtually invisible in the deep sea.
A female Pacific blackdragon
- A team of marine biologists used nets to catch 16 species of deep-sea fish that have evolved the ability to be virtually invisible to prey and predators.
- "Ultra-black" skin seems to be an evolutionary adaptation that helps fish camouflage themselves in the deep sea, which is illuminated by bioluminescent organisms.
- There are likely more, and potentially much darker, ultra-black fish lurking deep in the ocean.
The Pacific blackdragon
Credit: Karen Osborn/Smithsonian
<p>When researchers first saw the deep-sea species, it wasn't immediately obvious that their skin was ultra-black. Then, marine biologist Karen Osborn, a co-author on the new paper, noticed something strange about the photos she took of the fish.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I had tried to take pictures of deep-sea fish before and got nothing but these really horrible pictures, where you can't see any detail," Osborn told <em><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/meet-the-ultra-black-vantafish/" target="_blank">Wired</a></em>. "How is it that I can shine two strobe lights at them and all that light just disappears?"</p><p>After examining samples of fish skin under the microscope, the researchers discovered that the fish skin contains a layer of organelles called melanosomes, which contain melanin, the same pigment that gives color to human skin and hair. This layer of melanosomes absorbs most of the light that hits them.</p>A crested bigscale
Credit: Karen Osborn/Smithsonian
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">"But what isn't absorbed side-scatters into the layer, and it's absorbed by the neighboring pigments that are all packed right up close to it," Osborn told <em>Wired</em>. "And so what they've done is create this super-efficient, very-little-material system where they can basically build a light trap with just the pigment particles and nothing else."</p><p>The result? Strange and terrifying deep-sea species, like the crested bigscale, fangtooth, and Pacific blackdragon, all of which appear in the deep sea as barely more than faint silhouettes.</p>Pacific viperfish
David Csepp, NMFS/AKFSC/ABL
<p>But interestingly, this unique disappearing trick wasn't passed on to these species by a common ancestor. Rather, they each developed it independently. As such, the different species use their ultra-blackness for different purposes. For example, the threadfin dragonfish only has ultra-black skin during its adolescent years, when it's rather defenseless, as <em>Wired</em> <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/meet-the-ultra-black-vantafish/" target="_blank">notes</a>.</p><p>Other fish—like the <a href="http://onebugaday.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-new-anglerfish-oneirodes-amaokai.html" target="_blank">oneirodes species</a>, which use bioluminescent lures to bait prey—probably evolved ultra-black skin to avoid reflecting the light their own bodies produce. Meanwhile, species like <em>C. acclinidens</em> only have ultra-black skin around their gut, possibly to hide light of bioluminescent fish they've eaten.</p><p>Given that these newly described species are just ones that this team found off the coast of California, there are likely many more, and possibly much darker, ultra-black fish swimming in the deep ocean. </p>'Deep Nostalgia' AI brings old photos to life through animation
Using machine-learning technology, the genealogy company My Heritage enables users to animate static images of their relatives.
- Deep Nostalgia uses machine learning to animate static images.
- The AI can animate images by "looking" at a single facial image, and the animations include movements such as blinking, smiling and head tilting.
- As deepfake technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, some are concerned about how bad actors might abuse the technology to manipulate the pubic.
My Heritage/Deep Nostalgia
<p>But that's not to say the animations are perfect. As with most deep-fake technology, there's still an uncanny air to the images, with some of the facial movements appearing slightly unnatural. What's more, Deep Nostalgia is only able to create deepfakes of one person's face from the neck up, so you couldn't use it to animate group photos, or photos of people doing any sort of physical activity.</p>My Heritage/Deep Nostalgia
<p>But for a free deep-fake service, Deep Nostalgia is pretty impressive, especially considering you can use it to create deepfakes of <em>any </em>face, human or not. </p>When does an idea die? Plato and string theory clash with data
How long should one wait until an idea like string theory, seductive as it may be, is deemed unrealistic?
- How far should we defend an idea in the face of contrarian evidence?
- Who decides when it's time to abandon an idea and deem it wrong?
- Science carries within it its seeds from ancient Greece, including certain prejudices of how reality should or shouldn't be.
Plato used the allegory of the cave to explain that what humans see and experience is not the true reality.
Credit: Gothika via Wikimedia Commons CC 4.0
<p>When scientists and mathematicians use the term <em>Platonic worldview</em>, that's what they mean in general: The unbound capacity of reason to unlock the secrets of creation, one by one. Einstein, for one, was a believer, preaching the fundamental reasonableness of nature; no weird unexplainable stuff, like a god that plays dice—his tongue-in-cheek critique of the belief that the unpredictability of the quantum world was truly fundamental to nature and not just a shortcoming of our current understanding. Despite his strong belief in such underlying order, Einstein recognized the imperfection of human knowledge: "What I see of Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility." (Quoted by Dukas and Hoffmann in <em>Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives</em> (1979), 39.)</p> <p>Einstein embodies the tension between these two clashing worldviews, a tension that is still very much with us today: On the one hand, the Platonic ideology that the fundamental stuff of reality is logical and understandable to the human mind, and, on the other, the acknowledgment that our reasoning has limitations, that our tools have limitations and thus that to reach some sort of final or complete understanding of the material world is nothing but an impossible, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K2JTGIA?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">semi-religious dream</a>.</p>Can you still spread coronavirus after getting the vaccine?
The vaccine will shorten the "shedding" time.
