Welcome to the Exhibition

Africa is rich in natural resources from the earth. Many of these come in the form of minerals from which metals can be extracted. Only gold occurs naturally as a metal in any quantity; metallic iron is locked up in minerals called haematite and limonite, copper is in copper pyrites and malachite. Africa contributed about 7.5 million tonnes of iron in various forms to the world economy in 2004. Although this is only about 1.5% of total world production, Africa's share of world iron production is likely to rise to as much as 10% by 2010.

But this exhibition is mainly about what Africans do with the metals they make for themselves. We will concentrate on the two commonest metals, iron and copper.