Latin Africa

Latin Africa, historically those countries in North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, which were part of the Roman Empire. Some exclude Egypt, as there the dominant language of administration and business was Greek rather than Latin. The region between Tunisia and Morocco was later called the Maghreb (West) by the Arabs who conquered it in the seventh century.

In modern times the expression has been used by the French to refer to their former colonial territories in the African continent.

Currently, the expression is used to refer to those African countries that are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) or International Organization of La Francophonie and the members of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries whose official languages are either French, Portuguese or Spanish, or have a significant population that speak any of these languages.

Not all the Latin Africa countries are members of the Latin Union.

African countries where French is spoken

•  Benin
•  Burundi
•  Burkina Faso
•  Central African Republic
•  Chad
•  Cameroon
•  Côte d'Ivoire
•  Democratic Republic of the Congo
•  Republic of the Congo
•  Djibouti
•  Gabon
•  Ghana
•  Guinea
•  Madagascar
•  Mali
•  Mauritania
•  Niger
•  Rwanda
•  Senegal
•  Seychelles
•  Togo

African countries where Portuguese is spoken

•  Angola
•  Cape Verde
•  Guinea-Bissau
•  Mozambique
•  São Tomé and Príncipe

African countries where Spanish is spoken

•  Equatorial Guinea

See also

• United States of Latin Africa
• Latin Union
• Community of Portuguese Language Countries
• Lusophone
• Francophonie
• List of Latin place names in Africa

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