Cape to Cairo Road

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cecil Rhodes spanning "Cape to Cairo".

The Cape to Cairo Road or 'Pan-African Highway', sometimes called the Great North Road in sub-Saharan Africa, was a dream envisioned by the British Empire that would see a road stretch the length of Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo, similar to the Pan-American Highway.

Stalwarts of the British Empire had a grand vision for a road that would stretch across the continent from south to north, running through the British colonies of the time, such as the Union of South Africa, South and North Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Tanganyika, Kenya and Egypt. One of the main proponents of the road was Cecil John Rhodes, the man after whom Rhodesia was named.

The road would create cohesion between the British colonies of Africa, it was thought, and give Britain the most important and dominant political and economic influence over the continent, securing its position as a global colonial power. The road would also link some of the most important cities on the continent, including Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Harare (then Salisbury), Lusaka, Nairobi, Khartoum and Cairo.

One of the biggest problems was the fragmentation of British colonies and the decline of the Empire, which put paid to the colonial part of the dream.

Even today, the road remains a somewhat elusive idea, and to make the journey between Cape Town and Cairo would require an off-road vehicle.

The first section of the road that runs through South Africa is called the N1, linking Cape Town in the far south of the continent with Beit Bridge, located on the Limpopo River between South Africa and Zimbabwe. At this juncture, the road splits, allowing vehicles to travel to either Bulawayo or Harare. The link through Harare to Lusaka in Zambia is seen as the Cape to Cairo road, and the main north-south axis of Lusaka is named Cairo Road for this reason. From Lusaka, Zambia's Great North Road continues the route into Tanzania. From there on a number of roads could be deemed to be part of the road, the clear definitions and markings that are characteristic of the Pan-American Highway do not apply here. Most would consider it to be the road from Tunduma on the Tanzania-Zambia border, through Morogoro to the Arusha turnoff, and north to Arusha, then to Nairobi in Kenya. There is a marker in Arusha, Tanzania^{[citation needed]}, to indicate the midpoint of the road.