Since probably 3900 BCE, the Saharan and sub-Saharan regions of Africa have been separated by the extremely harsh climate of the sparsely populated Sahara, forming an effective barrier that is interrupted only by the Nile in Sudan, though navigation on the Nile was blocked by the Sudd and the river's cataracts. Overall, the UN Development Programme applies the 'sub-Saharan' classification to 46 of Africa's 54 countries, excluding Djibouti, Somalia, and Sudan. However, while they are also member states of the Arab League, the Comoros, Djibouti, Somalia, and Mauritania (and sometimes Sudan) are all geographically considered to be part of sub-Saharan Africa. Middle East–North Africa) as it is part of the Arab world, and most North African states are likewise members of the Arab League.

The term serves as a grouping counterpart to North Africa, which is instead grouped with the definition of MENA (i.e. While the UN geoscheme for Africa excludes the northern Sudan from its definition of sub-Saharan Africa, the African Union's regional definition includes it while instead excluding Mauritania. Geopolitically, in addition to the African countries and territories that are situated fully in that specified region, the term may also include polities that only have part of their territory located in that region, per the definition of the United Nations (UN). Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. The numbers shown correspond to the dates of all Iron Age artifacts associated with the Bantu expansion. Simplified climatic map of Africa: sub-Saharan Africa consists of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa in the north (yellow), the tropical savannas (light green) and the tropical rainforests (dark green) of Equatorial Africa, and the arid Kalahari Basin (yellow) and the ' Mediterranean' south coast (olive) of Southern Africa.

City hunter sub indo