Somali speakers form one of Africa’s largest ethnic blocks despite small numbers

Evidence

WITH A POPULATION numbering perhaps four and a half million, the Somali-speaking people can scarcely be regarded as a large nation. Yet they form one of the largest single ethnic blocks in Africa, and though sparsely distributed on the ground, live in continuous occupation of a great expanse of territory covering almost 400,000 square miles in the north-east corner, or ‘Horn’, of the continent facing Arabia. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 48

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: the MOC “The Nation That Couldn’t Hold: How Somali Clanship, Colonial Partition, and Pan-Somali Dreams Pulled the Seams Apart”

Related

• The Somali Republic alone had over four million people by 1961. (similarity 0.81)
• The Somali homeland is split into four separate states (similarity 0.80)
• Somali regional sentiment divided by colonial experience, with forced labor areas strongly anti-Italian (similarity 0.80)
• Northern Somali clans reached their present distribution by 1700. (similarity 0.79)