Africa is the second largest continent and comprises more than 50 independent countries. The continent is home to more than 1,000 ethnic groups with as many different languages . Differences in geography, politics, religion, and economics have shaped its numerous artistic traditions. Western and central Africa seem to have had stronger artistic traditions than the rest of the continent to the east and south. Good conditions for cultivating crops, a settled rather than nomadic population, and the existence of large kingdoms and city-states may have strengthened the impetus to create in this region. However, African societies that were not primarily agricultural also produced rich artistic and architectural traditions. Ways of life change, and scholars can sometimes trace changes in a society through its works of art. For example, the Chokwe people of Angola, in central Africa, created very dignified wooden statues of Chibinda Ilunga, a legendary hero who introduced a new hunting technique to them in the 1600s.
The Chokwe are now farmers, but the honor accorded this figure in their art indicates that hunting must once have been central to their survival. Vigorous artistic traditions developed in many towns and city-states of western Africa, where trade was the driving economic force. Yet the presence of trade in parts of eastern and southern Africa did not produce artistic traditions of comparable importance. Religion also differs from region to region and influences the kind of art produced. In western Africa, trade and flourishing agricultural communities produced city-states in which kings were associated with divinities and with bountiful harvests and the fertility of the land. In eastern Africa, grasslands lent themselves to cattle herding and rural settlements, where people tended to worship sky divinities associated with ancestor spirits.
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