African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 595: Chapter 273: Geographical Boundaries

During the conversation between Waltz and Mori, various vehicles came and went from the Cable State Factory No. 1 in Dar es Salaam. At this time, most of the vehicles were still powered by people and animals, and they couldn’t carry much at once.

Fortunately, the railway station in Dar es Salaam is not far from the Cable State Factory No. 1, making it easy to receive and ship goods. The real challenge still lies in the source of raw materials.

The copper and rubber used by the Cable State Factory No. 1 in Dar es Salaam both come from the interior, mainly concentrated in the provinces of Hohenzollern, Swabia, and Hessen Province. As for coal, they can get a quota from the city.

The provinces of Hohenzollern and Swabia are connected by railways, but Hessen Province is quite different. Hessen Province is also on the west side of the Mitumba Mountains, on the eastern edge of the Congo Basin. The terrain has significant elevation changes, making transportation not very convenient.

Therefore, as East Africa’s main rubber production area, Hessen Province has significant challenges in transporting rubber after harvesting. Hessen Province is also a major resource province in East Africa, rich in mineral resources such as copper, coal, iron, and tungsten. Additionally, it is one of the most important forestry provinces in East Africa, bordering the Congo Rainforest and the Mitumba Mountains, with abundant forestry resources.

Currently, there are only a few other resource-heavy provinces that can match Hessen Province, which are the provinces of Heixinggen (formerly the Transvaal Republic), Matebel Province (Zimbabwe), Southern Border Province (southern Transvaal Republic, and the former Zulu Kingdom and Swaziland Kingdom), Nile River Province (South Sudan), New Baden Province (Botswana), Hohenzollern Province (Zambia), and Swabia Province (southern Congo Plateau).

Among them, the provinces of Heixinggen and Matebel are unique existences, with their mineral resources comparable to most countries globally.

For example, the Hohenzollern province, if regarded as a country, its mineral value in a previous life could enter the top ten in the world; most of South Africa’s minerals were concentrated in this area, and South Africa was the world’s fifth-largest mining country.

Matebel Province also needs no further description. Although Zimbabwe’s currency is famous, its industry is relatively developed in Africa, and Zimbabwe is a landlocked country, so its rich mineral resources naturally play a significant role in this outcome.

The Hohenzollern province was similar in a previous life. Johannesburg, the most economically developed city in South Africa, was located within this province; however, due to Ernst’s policy of not developing the Hohenzollern province, East Africa does not have a city like Johannesburg.

After all, in a previous life, Johannesburg prospered by relying on gold mines, and South Africa’s gold mines were too conspicuous. East Africa didn’t want to attract trouble because of this.

In addition to these resource-rich provinces, there are provinces with relatively rich mineral resources like South Salzburg Province, New Württemberg Province, and Lorraine Province.

Therefore, it can be seen that East Africa’s top ten provinces in mineral resource value are mainly distributed in the central and southern regions of East Africa. The only northern province to make the list is the Nile River Province (South Sudan), primarily due to oil.

In northern East Africa, the boundaries mainly rely on plateaus. The regions north of the East African Plateau and South African Plateau are considered the north, including the Northern Province, Juba Province, Turkana Province, Nile River Province, New Bavaria Province, Eastern Azande Province, and most of the Congo Rainforest (in a previous life, Somali, southern Ethiopia, South Sudan, most of the Central African Republic, and most of Congo).

North of the Zambezi River, the two major plateau regions, the East African Plateau and the Katanga Plateau, are collectively known in East Africa as the Central Plateau, which is the central region of East Africa, including the Eastern Coastal Plain (in a previous life, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, southern Congo, etc.).

The provinces south of the Zambezi River are considered the southern part of East Africa, which is one method of geographical division in East Africa.

The plateau is an important classification standard, and the Zambezi River is an important geographical marker for separating plateaus. The two banks of the Zambezi River do not differ significantly, unlike the Huai River, which is a clear geographical boundary with distinct climatic differences on either side.

Of course, there is another very common geographical division in East Africa, based primarily on economic development and level of development as reference criteria.

According to this standard, East Africa is divided into five key parts: East, Inland, West, South, and North.

According to this standard, the distribution of the eastern region is very broad, encompassing the areas east of the Great East African Rift Valley, which is dominated by the Nile River, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Malawi. It generally refers to areas of East Africa with early development, high population density, and relatively advanced economies.

According to this standard, Somalia is considered part of the East, but Somalia is also part of the North. However, there is no need to be overly concerned about this point, as the local people in Somalia would certainly identify more with the East, since the East represents greater development in East Africa.

The Inland primarily refers to the four provinces of the Hohenzollern, Hessen Province, Swabia, and Matebel Province, which form the central geographical area of East Africa.

The southern area has shrunk considerably, mainly referring to the former South Africa areas and Botswana.

The boundaries of the North are vague, but it generally refers to the provinces in the tropical desert and tropical savanna intersections, excluding the Congo Rainforest.

The West consists of the mostly undeveloped regions and provinces, which are the least developed and least habitable in East Africa, primarily corresponding to the former Namibia.

Regardless of which of the two geographical division standards is used, Hessen Province is considered part of the central region. Of course, people from the eastern region might refer to the west as the West, similar to how people in the Far Eastern Empire’s northeast refer to the areas south of the Shanhai Pass as the South, which follows the same logic.

Hessen Province is an important resource-rich province in East Africa. The most important industry currently is the rubber industry, but Hessen Province, for various reasons, has extremely inconvenient transportation.

This increases the production cost for the East African power industry and other industries, such as the tires needed for bicycles and carriages.

Transporting rubber out of Hessen Province essentially relies on the so-called ”roads” of Hessen Province, while the roads in other parts of East Africa are more manageable.

The terrain in Hessen Province is relatively rugged, and there is significant rainfall, so its road conditions can be confirmed as among the worst in East Africa.

Of course, while the road conditions in Hessen Province are bad, they are not as terrible as those in Africa in a previous life, thanks to the efforts of the East African government, which ensures the roads are effectively maintained every year.

However, this is time-consuming and labor-intensive. In Hessen Province, the roads mostly need maintenance every now and then, as short as every two or three days, or at most a week, due to the deep tire imprints left by carriages after heavy rain, which create water-filled potholes after a few vehicles pass over them.

The most straightforward solution to Hessen Province’s road problems in the future is to harden the roads, which is relatively achievable by using cement to rebuild Hessen Province’s roads.

However, there is a large gap in cement supply in East Africa, and government investment in other projects in recent years has resulted in a continuous shortfall in cement, so the road-hardening plan in Hessen Province has not yet been implemented.

But with the development of the electricity and other industries, the demand for rubber is increasing significantly, and Hessen Province’s poor transportation conditions must be improved.

In a previous life, most rubber-producing countries had the advantage of proximity to the sea, making maritime transport convenient, while East Africa’s main rubber-producing area is inland. Therefore, the inland transport in Hessen Province must be improved, or the rubber produced in East Africa will struggle to compete with other major rubber-producing areas internationally, especially with the extra transportation costs.

Ernst does not expect East African rubber to be cheaper than that from Southeast Asia and Brazil, but it must be cheaper domestically than imports. Of course, the rubber industry has always been profitable, with demand for rubber increasing annually, making the possibility of losses very small.