Africa

Following their destruction of Carthage at the conclusion of the Third Punic War in 146 bc, the Romans originally named their province after the Berber tribe of Afrigi, who lived in what is now Tunisia and eastern Algeria. As the Romans increased the size of the province by expanding southwards and eastwards, and then westwards, so the name came to be applied to these additional regions until in time it embraced the whole of the continent. Afrigi may have been derived from the Berber word ʼafar 'dust', to mean 'People from the Dusty Land'. 'Black Africa' refers to that part of the continent south of the Sahara where the majority of the population is black.

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