This is becoming a wonderful, ever-growing saga, like The Land Before Time, although I think that ended after episode five, or Rocky, which I suppose will only end with Sylvester Stallone’s death. Having put together a spreadsheet detailing the history of African governance since independence, my friend John kindly put together a chart summarising the transition between governance classes over time. It was, bluntly, a hit, with several blogs around the world linking to it. Which was great!

Now John and my friend Pete have collaborated on this latest version. Like the previous, it shows the transition from colonialism to, in many cases, despotism, and more recently towards democracy. But now it’s weighted by population, so you can see just what proportion of the African population lived under each form of government at any one time. You can see a bigger version if you click through.

Africans living under different government types 1950-2005

Want to see how it’s made, or play with the data yourself? Here’s the spreadsheet, and you can also get a detailed history spreadsheet from the original post.