Why is the population of the African continent less than India's?

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A major point who have to keep note of is while Africa may 'seem' larger, the amount of land that could've been used for large-scale Human settlement is quite constrained. Before modern machinery & medicine, the vast expanse of Central Africa- dominated by the tropical perennial forests of the Congo Basin- were not suitable for extensive human settlement (despite romantic theories of lost cities & mines). To the north of this, lies the Tsetse fly belt- the reason why the Arab conquest of Africa stalled in its tracks and again, not the best spot for civilization to prosper (though cultures have flourished there- as long as the population was low enough not to spark off too many epidemics).

In the rest of the land, the soil is mostly infertile- and even fertile regions like the Serengeti have been stymied due to irregular drainage & very high basicity in most parts. Even so- you can observe that the out of the 4 primary fertile spots you see in the map, at least 3- Ivory Coast, North Ethiopia, & the Zimbabwe-South Africa line have been important sites of settlement. In the South, the rain shadow area also leads to low population density unless modern techniques are used.

In this case, one might ask- why didn't the Africans develop the required technology? Nature plays an important role in determining a nation's population- but that's highly subjective. Cold Europe has a very large population for its size. In India, arid Rajasthan & Sindh aren't the best of places to raise a civilization- and yet they've been building huge cities since the Bronze Age. The reason is more subtle:-

1- Ancient Indians possessed extensive metal deposits- especially of Iron. In contrast, apart from certain places like Benin & Ethiopia. iron was scarce in Africa until the 1600s. This means warfare- the basis of Imperial growth & technology- remained stunted. Thus, agriculture, trade, bureaucracy remained in their infancy in most places.

2- Water networks. The river valleys in the North allowed for very sophisticated trade & bureaucratic structures that promoted Empire-building, and thus agriculture & urbanization. Riverine navigation led to sea travel & settlement. We know that the Harappan civilization had trade with Sumer and that the Iron Age Indians were pretty well versed with the geography of the entire subcontinent. This was never the case with Africa.

3- A hare-brained theory here would be the Mini Ice Age that started around 1300. We know that Africa was a much more conducive place for Human settlement in the Ancient times- but the sudden failure of important African urban civilizations like Great Zimbabwe, the Bono Empire and the Yoruba cultures that preceeded the Oyo Empire in the 1300s/1400s are clear sign that the ensuing resource crunch didn't help matters.

4- So, you can see that when the Age of Colonization was just beginning, African states had just undergone a catastrophic period of collapse- and this came on top of a continental profile that wasn't exactly supported of large agrarian civilization. It's highly likely that states like Dahomey & the Zulus could've built up new large-scale urban Empires given more time- but who knows? Thus, unlike India which was used both as a market as well as a resource source, African states were used by Colonizing powers mostly as pure resource source. Further, as Asian states were older, and highly sophisticated- in many cases, far more than the European powers themselves- there arose a large demand for processed Asian goods in the West- a precursor to modern globalization. Africa, with its already low population & weakened cultures, couldn't manage.

As the West grew richer, Asia grew poorer- but Africa was practically wiped out. The more they weakened, the more primitive their agriculture, the more denuded their industry & the more impoverished their cultures grew- and this cycle went on. So while both Asian & African populations grew after the Age of industrialization, the growth in Asia far overshoot that of Africa. Of course, this scenario will change once fertility rates in Asia fall...

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