area c.30·97 million km²/11·6 million sq mi. Second largest continent, extending S from the Mediterranean Sea; bounded W by the Atlantic Ocean and E by the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea; bisected by the Equator; maximum length, 8000 km/5000 mi; maximum width, 7200 km/4500 mi; highest point, Mt Kilimanjaro (5895 m/19 340 ft); major rivers include the Congo, Niger, Nile, Zambezi.
Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas;
Although European speculation about the nature of Africa south of Sahara (Aethiopia) dates back more than two millennia, Africa is generally assumed to be the continent longest inhabited by human beings.
Afri was the name of several peoples who dwelt in North Africa near the provincial capital, Carthage.
Roman Ancient Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while "Asia" was used to refer to Anatolia and lands to the east.
Geography
Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from the main mass of the Earth's exposed surface. (Geopolitically, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula east of the Suez Canal is often considered part of Africa, as well.) From the most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia (37°21' N), to the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas in South Africa (34°51'15" S), is a distance of approximately 8,000 km (5,000 miles);
Africa's largest country is Sudan, and its smallest country is the Seychelles, an archipelago off the east coast.
Climate, fauna, and flora
The climate of Africa ranges from tropical to subarctic on its highest peaks.
Africa boasts perhaps the world's largest combination of highest density and "range of freedom" of wild animal populations and diversity, with wild populations of large carnivores (such as lions, hyenas, and cheetahs) and herbivores (such as buffalo, deer, elephants, camels, and giraffes) ranging freely on primarily open nonprivate plains, as well as jungle creatures (including snakes and primates) and aquatic life (crocodiles and amphibians, for example).
History
Africa is the oldest inhabited territory on earth, with the human species originating from the continent.
Although there are absolutely no records, theorists think that by 130,000 BC the bulk of Africa's populations inhabited the Sahara, which was at that time a fertile valley criss-crossed by rivers.
At the end of the ice age guessed to have been around 10,500 BC, the Sahara had become a green fertile valley again, and its African populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The domestication of cattle in Africa precedes agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gathering cultures.
By 3000 BC agriculture arose independently in both the tropical portions of West Africa, where African yams and oil palms were domesticated, and in Ethiopia, where coffee and teff became domesticated.
The international phenomenon known as the Beaker culture began to affect western North Africa. People from the Great Lakes Region of Africa settled along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea to become the proto-Canaanites who dominated the lowlands between the Jordan River, the Mediterranean and the Sinai Desert.
By the 1st millennium BC ironworking had been introduced in Northern Africa and quickly began spreading across the Sahara into the northern parts of sub-saharan Africa and by 500 BC metalworking began to become commonplace in West Africa, possibly after being introduced by the Carthaginians. Ironworking was fully established by roughly 500 BC in areas of East and West Africa, though other regions didn't begin ironworking until the early centuries AD. Some copper objects from Egypt, North Africa, Nubia and Ethiopia have been excavated in West Africa dating from around 500 BC time period, suggesting that trade networks had been established by this time.
Early civilizations and trade
About 3300 BC, the historical record opens in Africa with the rise of literacy in the Pharaonic-ruled civilisation of Ancient Egypt, which continued, with varying levels of influence over other areas, until 343 BC. The camel was first brought to Egypt by the Persians after 525 BC, although large herds did not become common enough in North Africa to establish the trans-Saharan trade until the eighth century AD.
Pre-colonial Africa possessed perhaps as many as 10,000 different states and polities characterised by different sorts of political organisation and rule. larger, more structured groups such as the family clan groupings of the Bantu-speaking people of central and southern Africa and heavily-structured clan groups in the Horn of Africa, the Sahelian Kingdoms, and autonomous city-states such as the Swahili coastal trading towns of the East African coast, whose trade network extended as far as China.
In 1414, the Chinese admiral Zheng He visited Africa's east coast.
In West Africa, the decline of the Atlantic slave trade in the 1820s caused dramatic economic shifts in local polities.
Colonialism and the "scramble for Africa"
In the late nineteenth century, the European imperial powers staged a major "scramble for Africa" and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial nation states, and leaving only two independent nations: Liberia, an independent state part-settled by African Americans; Those who lived in Saharan or Sub-Saharan Africa and traded across the continent for centuries often found themselves crossing borders that existed only on European maps.
In nations that had substantial European populations, for example Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, systems of second-class citizenship were often set up in order to give Europeans political power far in excess of their numbers.
Post-colonial Africa
Today, Africa contains 53 independent and sovereign countries, which mostly still have the borders drawn during the era of European colonialism. Many countries in Northern Africa received Soviet military aid, while many in Central and Southern Africa were supported by the United States, France or both.
Politics
Algeria Togo Benin Equatorial Guinea Chad Egypt Ethiopia Eritrea Cape*Verde Libya Mali Ghana Côte
d'Ivoire Burkina
Faso Mauritania Morocco São Tomé and Príncipe** Niger Gabon Nigeria Congo Somalia South Africa Namibia Sudan Tunisia Western
Sahara Senegal Gambia Guinea
Bissau Guinea Liberia Madagascar Cent Afr Rep Kenya Uganda Tanzania Burundi Rwanda Angola Saint Helena (UK)* Cameroon Sierra
Leone Lesotho Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Mauritius* Réunion* *Comoros Seychelles Democratic
Republic of
the Congo Swaziland Mozambique Malawi Djibouti Atlantic
Ocean Atlantic
Ocean Indian
Ocean Strait of Gibraltar Mediterranean Sea Red
Sea
The African Union (AU), is a federation consisting of all of Africa's states apart from Morocco. In July 2004, the capital of the African Union was relocated to Midrand, in the AU Constituent Republic of South Africa. There is in effect a policy to decentralise the African Federation's institutions so that they are shared by all the states
The African Union, not to be confused with the AU Commission, is formed by an Act of Union which aims to transform the African Economic Community, a federated commonwealth, into a state, under established international conventions. The African Union has a parliamentary government, known as the African Union Government, consisting of legislative, judicial and executive organs, and led by the African Union President and Head of State, who is also the President of the Pan African Parliament.
The powers and authority of the President of the African Parliament derive from the Union Act, and the Protocol of the Pan African Parliament, as well as the inheritance of presidential authority stipulated by African treaties and by international treaties, including those subordinating the Secretary General of the OAU Secretariat (AU Commission) to the PAP.
Failed state policies, inequitable global trade practices, and the effects of global climate change have resulted in many widespread famines, and significant portions of Africa remain with distribution systems unable to disseminate enough food or water for the population to survive.
Economy
Due largely to the effects of colonialism, corrupt governments and despotism, Africa is the world's poorest inhabited continent.
While rapid growth in China and now India, and moderate growth in Latin America, has lifted millions beyond subsistence living, Africa has gone backwards in terms of foreign trade, investment, and per capita income.
Some areas, notably Botswana and South Africa, have experienced economic success, including the opening of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Nigeria sits on one of the largest proven oil reserves in the world and has the highest population among nations in Africa, with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
Demographics
Africa's population has grown rapidly since the mid 1800s when vast tracts of Africa were depopulated by slavery.
Speakers of Bantu languages (part of the Niger-Congo family) are the majority in southern, central and east Africa proper. But there are also several Nilotic groups in East Africa, and a few remaining indigenous Khoisan ('San' or 'Bushmen') and Pygmy peoples in southern and central Africa, respectively.
The peoples of North Africa comprise two main groups;
During the past century or so, small but economically important colonies of Lebanese and Chinese have also developed in the larger coastal cities of West and East Africa, respectively.
Beginning in the sixteenth century, Europeans such as the Portuguese and Dutch began to establish trading posts and forts along the coasts of western and southern Africa. The French settled in large numbers in Algeria where they became known collectively as pieds-noirs, and on a smaller scale in other areas of North and West Africa as well as in Madagascar. South Africa has also become the preferred destination of white Anglo-Zimbabweans, and of migrants from all over southern Africa. Large Indian communities are found in South Africa, and smaller ones are present in Kenya, Tanzania, and some other southern and east African countries. Malay and Indian ancestries are also important components in the group of people known in South Africa as Cape Coloureds (people with origins in two or more races and continents).
Languages
By most estimates, Africa contains well over a thousand languages, some have estimated it to be over two thousand languages (most of African rather than European origin).
The Afro-Asiatic languages are a language family of about 240 languages and 285 million people widespread throughout East Africa, North Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia. The Niger-Congo language family covers much of Sub-Saharan Africa and is probably the largest language family in the world in terms of different languages. The Khoisan languages number about 50 and are spoken in Southern Africa by approximately 120 000 people. African paralanguage is rooted in a complex of historical relations and ancient spiritual beliefs that have succeeded in transcending race, language, politics, and the twin tragedies of slavery and colonization of Africa. In North Africa especially the rejection of the label Arab or European has resulted in an upsurge of demands for special protection of indigenous Amazigh languages and culture in Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. In South Africa, intellectuals from settler communities of European descent increasingly identify as African for cultural rather than geographical or racial reasons.The similarities between the cultures of different ethnic and national groups give Africa the appearance of overlapping cultures.
Urban culture in Africa, now associated with Western values, is a great contrast from traditional African urban culture which was once rich and enviable even by modern Western standards.
The main and most enduring cultural fault-line in Africa is the divide between traditional pastoralists and agriculturalists. The vast majority of the scholarship on Africa was extraneous and catered to the demand for exotic and outlandish representations of Africa.
Music and dance
The music of Africa is one of its most dynamic art forms. Egypt has long been a cultural focus of the Arab world, while remembrance of the rhythms of sub-Saharan Africa, in particular west Africa, was transmitted through the Atlantic slave trade to modern samba, blues, jazz, reggae, rap, and rock and roll. Modern music of the continent includes the highly complex choral singing of southern Africa and the dance rhythms of soukous, dominated by the music of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Afrikaans music, also found in South Africa, is idiosyncratic being composed mostly of traditional Boer music, while more recent immigrant communities have introduced the music of their homes to the continent.
Indigenous musical and dance traditions of Africa are maintained by oral traditions and they are distinct from the music and dance styles of North Africa and Southern Africa. Arab influences are visible in North African music and dance and in Southern Africa western influences are apparent due to colonization.
Islam entered Africa as Muslims conquered North Africa between 640 and 710, beginning with Egypt. They established Mogadishu, Melinde, Mombasa, Kilwa, and Sofala, following the sea trade down the coast of East Africa, and diffusing through the Sahara desert into the interior of Africa -- following in particular the paths of Muslim traders.
|
Name of region and territory, with flag |
Area (km²) |
Population (1 July 2002 est.) |
Population density (per km²) |
Capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern Africa: | ||||
| Burundi | 27,830 | 6,373,002 | 229.0 | Bujumbura |
| Comoros | 2,170 | 614,382 | 283.1 | Moroni |
| Djibouti | 23,000 | 472,810 | 20.6 | Djibouti |
| Eritrea | 121,320 | 4,465,651 | 36.8 | Asmara |
| Ethiopia | 1,127,127 | 67,673,031 | 60.0 | Addis Ababa |
| Kenya | 582,650 | 31,138,735 | 53.4 | Nairobi |
| Madagascar | 587,040 | 16,473,477 | 28.1 | Antananarivo |
| Malawi | 118,480 | 10,701,824 | 90.3 | Lilongwe |
| Mauritius | 2,040 | 1,200,206 | 588.3 | Port Louis |
| Mayotte (France) | 374 | 170,879 | 456.9 | Mamoudzou |
| Mozambique | 801,590 | 19,607,519 | 24.5 | Maputo |
| Réunion (France) | 2,512 | 743,981 | 296.2 | Saint-Denis |
| Rwanda | 26,338 | 7,398,074 | 280.9 | Kigali |
| Seychelles | 455 | 80,098 | 176.0 | Victoria |
| Somalia | 637,657 | 7,753,310 | 12.2 | Mogadishu |
| Tanzania | 945,087 | 37,187,939 | 39.3 | Dodoma |
| Uganda | 236,040 | 24,699,073 | 104.6 | Kampala |
| Zambia | 752,614 | 9,959,037 | 13.2 | Lusaka |
| Zimbabwe | 390,580 | 11,376,676 | 29.1 | Harare |
| Middle Africa: | ||||
| Angola | 1,246,700 | 10,593,171 | 8.5 | Luanda |
| Cameroon | 475,440 | 16,184,748 | 34.0 | Yaoundé |
| Central African Republic | 622,984 | 3,642,739 | 5.8 | Bangui |
| Chad | 1,284,000 | 8,997,237 | 7.0 | N'Djamena |
| Congo | 342,000 | 2,958,448 | 8.7 | Brazzaville |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | 2,345,410 | 55,225,478 | 23.5 | Kinshasa |
| Equatorial Guinea | 28,051 | 498,144 | 17.8 | Malabo |
| Gabon | 267,667 | 1,233,353 | 4.6 | Libreville |
| São Tomé and Príncipe | 1,001 | 170,372 | 170.2 | São Tomé |
| Northern Africa: | ||||
| Algeria | 2,381,740 | 32,277,942 | 13.6 | Algiers |
| Egypt | 1,001,450 | 70,712,345 | 70.6 | Cairo |
| Libya | 1,759,540 | 5,368,585 | 3.1 | Tripoli |
| Morocco | 446,550 | 31,167,783 | 69.8 | Rabat |
| Sudan | 2,505,810 | 37,090,298 | 14.8 | Khartoum |
| Tunisia | 163,610 | 9,815,644 | 60.0 | Tunis |
| Western Sahara | 266,000 | 256,177 | 1.0 | El Aaiún |
| Southern Europe dependencies in Northern Africa: | ||||
| Canary Islands (Spain) | 7,492 | 1,694,477 | 226.2 |
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife |
| Ceuta (Spain) | 20 | 71,505 | 3,575.2 | — |
| Madeira Islands (Portugal) | 797 | 245,000 | 307.4 | Funchal |
| Melilla (Spain) | 12 | 66,411 | 5,534.2 | — |
| Southern Africa: | ||||
| Botswana | 600,370 | 1,591,232 | 2.7 | Gaborone |
| Lesotho | 30,355 | 2,207,954 | 72.7 | Maseru |
| Namibia | 825,418 | 1,820,916 | 2.2 | Windhoek |
| South Africa | 1,219,912 | 43,647,658 | 35.8 | Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Pretoria |
| Swaziland | 17,363 | 1,123,605 | 64.7 | Mbabane |
| Western Africa: | ||||
| Benin | 112,620 | 6,787,625 | 60.3 | Porto-Novo |
| Burkina Faso | 274,200 | 12,603,185 | 46.0 | Ouagadougou |
| Cape Verde | 4,033 | 408,760 | 101.4 | Praia |
| Côte d'Ivoire | 322,460 | 16,804,784 | 52.1 | Abidjan, Yamoussoukro |
| Gambia | 11,300 | 1,455,842 | 128.8 | Banjul |
| Ghana | 239,460 | 20,244,154 | 84.5 | Accra |
| Guinea | 245,857 | 7,775,065 | 31.6 | Conakry |
| Guinea-Bissau | 36,120 | 1,345,479 | 37.3 | Bissau |
| Liberia | 111,370 | 3,288,198 | 29.5 | Monrovia |
| Mali | 1,240,000 | 11,340,480 | 9.1 | Bamako |
| Mauritania | 1,030,700 | 2,828,858 | 2.7 | Nouakchott |
| Niger | 1,267,000 | 10,639,744 | 8.4 | Niamey |
| Nigeria | 923,768 | 129,934,911 | 140.7 | Abuja |
| Saint Helena (UK) | 410 | 7,317 | 17.8 | Jamestown |
| Senegal | 196,190 | 10,589,571 | 54.0 | Dakar |
| Sierra Leone | 71,740 | 5,614,743 | 78.3 | Freetown |
| Togo | 56,785 | 5,285,501 | 93.1 | Lomé |
| Total | 30,368,609 | 843,705,143 | 27.8 | |
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