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Description
Instead of being annexed into the British Empire, the Boers republics in southern Africa manage to retain their independence through an alliance with a newly unified and ambitious German Empire. Wanting to ensure their access to the mineral riches of the upper Limpopo region, German interest in the southern areas of Portuguese East Africa intensifies to the extent that with some expert negotiation round the conference tables of Europe, Germany is able to gain official control of the area as the German colony of Sofala. Naturally, the Portuguese aren't too happy at losing an area that had been under their control for over 350 years, leading to the development of a Germano-Portuguese rivalry in southern Africa. Thus, when the Germans start construction of their "Southern African Railway" to connect the gold, copper and diamond fields of the South African Republic and Matabeleland to the Indian, and later Atlantic Oceans, the Portuguese respond by planning their own African transcontinental railway, known as the Zambezi-Angola Railway.

The map shows southern Africa at the close of the nineteenth century, with the routes of the German Southern African Railway and the Portuguese Zambezi-Angola Railway, plus other railways built by the British, Boers and Germans.

Description
Instead of being annexed into the British Empire, the Boers republics in southern Africa manage to retain their independence through an alliance with a newly unified and ambitious German Empire. Wanting to ensure their access to the mineral riches of the upper Limpopo region, German interest in the southern areas of Portuguese East Africa intensifies to the extent that with some expert negotiation round the conference tables of Europe, Germany is able to gain official control of the area as the German colony of Sofala. Naturally, the Portuguese aren't too happy at losing an area that had been under their control for over 350 years, leading to the development of a Germano-Portuguese rivalry in southern Africa. Thus, when the Germans start construction of their "Southern African Railway" to connect the gold, copper and diamond fields of the South African Republic and Matabeleland to the Indian, and later Atlantic Oceans, the Portuguese respond by planning their own African transcontinental railway, known as the Zambezi-Angola Railway.

The map shows southern Africa at the close of the nineteenth century, with the routes of the German Southern African Railway and the Portuguese Zambezi-Angola Railway, plus other railways built by the British, Boers and Germans.