Cairo–Cape Town Highway

Trans-African Highway 4
Route information
Major junctions
North end	TAH 1 in Cairo, Egypt
Major intersections	TAH 6 in Sudan and Ethiopia TAH 8 in Nairobi, Kenya TAH 9 in Zambia
South end	TAH 3 in Cape Town, South Africa
Location
Highway system
Transport in
← TAH 3 → TAH 5

The Cairo–Cape Town Highway is Trans-African Highway 4 in the transcontinental road network being developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the African Union. The route has a length of 10,228 km (6,355 mi) and links Cairo in Egypt to Cape Town in South Africa.

The British Empire had long proposed a road through the Cape to Cairo Red Line of British colonies. The road was variously known as the Cape to Cairo Road, Pan-African Highway, or, in sub-Saharan Africa, the Great North Road. Like the Cape to Cairo Railway, the road was not completed before the end of British colonal rule.

In the 1980s, a modified version of the plan was revived as part of the Trans-African Highway, a transcontinental road network developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (ADB), and the African Union, named the Cairo-Cape Town Highway. While it uses most of the same roads as the original Cape to Cairo Road, it uses different routes in a few places.

History

The original proposal for a North South Red Line route was made in 1874 by Edwin Arnold, then the editor of The Daily Telegraph, which was joint sponsor of the expedition by Henry Morton Stanley to Africa to discover the course of the Congo River. The proposed route involved a mixture of railway and river transport between Elizabethville in the Belgian Congo and Sennar in the Sudan rather than a full length rail line.

In comparison, the Red Line road would stretch across the continent from south to north, running through the British colonies of the time, such as the Union of South Africa, Southern and Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Kenya, Sudan and Egypt. The road would create cohesion between the British colonies of Africa, it was thought, and give Britain dominant political and economic influence over the continent, securing its position as a global colonial power. The road would also link some of the most important cities of Africa, including Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Salisbury, Lusaka, Nairobi, Khartoum and Cairo. The main street through the centre of Lusaka was part of this route and is how it got its name, Cairo Road. One of the main proponents of the route was Cecil John Rhodes, though his preference was for a railway. German East Africa was a gap in the British territories, but Rhodes, in particular, felt that Germany ought to be a natural ally. Shortly before his death he had persuaded the German Kaiser to allow access through his colony for the Cape to Cairo telegraph line (which was built as far north as Ujiji but never completed). In 1918 German East Africa became the Tanganyika Territory administered by the United Kingdom and the gap was thus filled.

The Rhodes Colossus: Caricature of Cecil Rhodes, after he announced plans for a telegraph line and a railroad from Cape Town to Cairo.

Map showing almost complete British control over the Cape to Cairo route, 1914

  British control

France had a rival strategy in the late 1890s to link its colonies from west to east across the continent, Senegal to Djibouti. Sudan and Ethiopia were in the way, but France sent expeditions in 1897 to establish a protectorate in southern Sudan and to find a route across Ethiopia. The scheme foundered when a British flotilla on the Nile confronted the French expedition at the point of intersection between the French and British routes, leading to the Fashoda Incident and eventual diplomatic defeat for France.

Even though Egypt became independent in 1922, British influence was still strong enough for Cairo to be viewed as part of the British sphere of interest, and the idea of a road remained alive. After the Second World War, the British Empire disintegrated; Sudan was the next to become independent in 1956, putting an end to the colonial motivation of the dream.

The first known attempt to drive a vehicle from Cape Town to Cairo was by a Captain Kelsey in 1913-14 but this came to an untimely end when he was killed by a leopard in Rhodesia. The first successful journey was the Court Treatt expedition of 1924 led by Major Chaplin Court Treatt and described by his wife Stella Court Treatt in Cape to Cairo (1927), which drove two Crossley light trucks leaving Cape Town on 23 September 1924 and arriving in Cairo on 24 January 1926.

The plan was revived in the 1980s. At the time the Republic of South Africa was not included in the planned route but this changed with the end of the Apartheid. A consultants' report suggested Pretoria as end, but as a major port, Cape Town is regarded as the southern end of regional highways in Southern African Development Community countries. The highway may be referred to in documents as the Cairo–Gaborone Highway or Cairo–Pretoria Highway.

Route

The stretch of highway between Dongola and Wadi Halfa in Northern Sudan and the Egypt-Sudan border are now accessible by road through the Qastal-Ashkeet border post.

Between Wad Madani in Sudan and Wereta in Ethiopia, the route is shared with the Ndjamena-Djibouti Highway. The Ethiopian section is all tarmac road, although much of the Ethiopian section passes through mountainous terrain and parts of the road may be hazardous as a result.

In northern Kenya the section has been hazardous due to the activities of armed bandits. The road has been dubbed "Hell's Road" by overland travellers, but it is completely paved. In Nairobi, the Cairo-Cape Town Highway intersects with the Lagos–Mombasa Highway.

Scenery between Iringa and Dodoma.

The road section from Arusha through Babati and Dodoma to Iringa in central Tanzania (the T5 road) has been completely paved, and passable throughout most of the year.

Between Iringa in Tanzania and Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia via Tunduma & Mpika, the highway uses an important regional route, the Tanzam Highway (linking East Africa to Southern Africa). The Tanzanian section is designated as the T1 road while the Zambian section is called the Great North Road (T2 road).

From Kapiri Mposhi, the road is completely paved, mostly in good condition and continues southwards as the T2 road (still called Great North Road), through Kabwe and Lusaka to the Kafue River Bridge, where it becomes the south-westerly Lusaka–Livingstone Road, through Mazabuka and Choma to Livingstone and the Victoria Falls, where the road crosses the Zambezi River and enters Zimbabwe. The section from Kapiri Mposhi to the Kafue Bridge is shared with the Beira-Lobito Highway.

The road section through Zimbabwe is paved, firstly going south-east from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo as the A8 road, then shifting south-west as the A7 road, crossing the border with Botswana after Plumtree (Ramokgwebana River), to the city of Francistown. The road section through Botswana is paved, going from the border with Zimbabwe as one road (the A1 road) through Francistown, Palapye, Gaborone and Lobatse to the Ramatlabama border with South Africa.

In South Africa, the road is completely paved, first going south from the Ramatlabama Border through Mahikeng to Warrenton as the N18 route, then from Warrenton through Kimberley to Beaufort West as the N12 route, then from Beaufort West to Cape Town as the N1 route. At Cape Town, it meets the southern terminus of the Tripoli–Cape Town Highway, where it ends.

Original route

The proposed route by the British Empire was known as the Cape to Cairo Road or the Pan-African Highway. In sub-Saharan Africa, it was also known as the Great North Road.

The Cairo–Cape Town Highway follows much of the route that makes up the proposed Cape to Cairo Road but it has a few differences. Firstly, the Cairo–Cape Town Highway passes through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia while the Cape-to-Cairo Road goes directly through South Sudan from Kenya when heading northwards. Secondly, in Tanzania, the Cairo–Cape Town Highway passes as the shortcut through Dodoma and Babati (The T5) when travelling from Iringa to Arusha and not as the longer route through Chalinze. Thirdly, the Cairo–Cape Town Highway passes through Livingstone (Victoria Falls), Bulawayo, Francistown and Gaborone and not through Harare, Pretoria and Johannesburg.

Original route today

Starting from the south, the first section of the road that runs through South Africa is called the N1, linking Cape Town in the south with Beit Bridge on the Limpopo River between South Africa and Zimbabwe. It passes through Johannesburg and Pretoria. There are numerous alternative routes in South Africa.

In Zimbabwe, the road continues from Beit Bridge as the Chirundu-Beitbridge Regional Road Corridor, which consists of the A4 road (R1 road) to Harare and the A1 road (R3 road) to Chirundu Border Post on the Zambezi River thereafter, continuing as the T2 road in Zambia to Lusaka.

From Lusaka, Zambia's Great North Road continues the route to Tanzania as the T2 road. This route from Lusaka to Taznania is also known as the Tanzam Highway.

In Tanzania there are a number of roads could be deemed to be part of the route; the clear definitions and markings that are characteristic of the Pan-African Highway do not apply here. Most would consider it to be the road from Tunduma on the Tanzania-Zambia border, through Iringa and Morogoro to the Arusha turnoff at Chalinze, and north to Arusha (although there is now a shorter route from Iringa to Arusha through Dodoma and Babati), then to Nairobi in Kenya. This route is now all paved. There was a marker in the 1930s in Arusha, Tanzania, to indicate the midpoint of the road.

Kenya has a tarred highway to its border with Sudan but the roads in southern Sudan are very poor and made frequently impassable, so that even without the conflicts that have afflicted Sudan, the route through Ethiopia is generally preferred by overland travellers. Also, the border between Sudan and South Sudan was closed in 2011, but was reopened in 2022. The route from Isiolo in Kenya to Moyale on the Ethiopian border through the northern Kenyan desert has sometimes been dangerous due to bandits, but is now paved.

Through Ethiopia the route is tarred but some sections may have deteriorated severely. A paved road from Lake Tana to Gedaref takes the route into Sudan.

The most difficult section in the whole Cape to Cairo journey was across the Nubian Desert in northern Sudan between Atbara and Wadi Halfa, but this has been bypassed by a paved road on the west side of the Nile, Dongola to Abu Simbel Junction to Aswan. Tarred highways continue the route to Cairo.

See also

• Trans-African Highway network
• Lagos-Mombasa Highway

References

• African Development Bank/United Nations Economic Commission For Africa: "Review of the Implementation Status of the Trans African Highways and the Missing Links: Volume 2: Description of Corridors". 14 August 2003. Retrieved 14 July 2007.
• Michelin Motoring and Tourist Map: "Africa North and West". Michelin Travel Publications, Paris, 2000.