By PROPORTION.
Lord of mercy, MOST of Africa's land is neither Arable, has access to water, nor can it be easily traversed. Why do you think there is such a large presence of drought resistant foods like Cassava in the first place? I am not entirely sure you grasp the concept of ARABLE land. That not just grass. This is what you need to understand, civilization manifests itself in areas with access to water, in order to make land even. Thats why large expansive states existed in regions like East Africa and Egypt, the latter almost entirely being a result of the presence of the Nile. BUT, because of Africa IS SO fukkING BIG it meant that it was nigh impossible for any one defacto ruler to truly gain a foothold of significant swathes of the continent. The EUROPEANS were the first. The advancements made on their own continent (due to favorable conditions and rapid development) meant that these innovations could be applied to smaller, more fractures, less expansive cultures and civilisations. And thats exactly what happened. In fact, its actually testament to Africa's reslience, that it was actually the last continent that Europe was able to gain signficant foothold in. By the time the Berlin Conference even happened, the British had been in control of India for about 200+ years, they had been in control (and lost) North America, Southern and Central America had not only been divided up by the Europeans with the natives extinct, and Hong Kong was under British control.
