All You Need to Know About Continents : AFRICA

Facts about Africa:-

1. Africa is the world’s second-largest continent in terms of both land area and population. It is a nearly entirely isolated landmass, with only a small land bridge connecting the African Mainland to Western Asia in the northeast.

2. Africa is the most populous continent. The African continent is home to 54 countries.

3. Africa is home to approximately 1.3 billion people. The largest cities on the African continent are Lagos in Nigeria, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Cairo in Egypt.

4. The oldest human fossils such as skeletons and skulls have been discovered in Africa, therefore the African continent is also referred to as the ‘cradle of humankind’.

5. Several countries colonised Africa between the 15th and 19th centuries, including Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, and the United States. Ethiopia and Liberia are the only African countries that have avoided colonial rule.

6. Africa also has the world’s longest river, the Nile, and the world’s second highest waterfalls, the Tugela Falls in South Africa, as well as the world’s largest desert, the Sahara.

7. Africa accounts for 6% of the world’s total surface area, or approximately 30,244,000 km2 (11,700,000 mi2). The continent, including its adjacent islands, accounts for approximately 20% of the total land area on Earth. Algeria is Africa’s largest country, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and Sudan.

8. Ethiopia, the hottest country on the planet, is located in Africa.

9. The equator runs through the middle of the Dark Continent, which receives direct sunlight all year.

10. According to research, Homo sapiens originated in Africa and then spread to the rest of the world’s continents.

11. The mineral-rich continent of Africa accounts for more than 50% of the world’s gold and 95% of the world’s diamonds.

12. The Dark Continent also supplies 66% of the world’s chocolate.

13. Africa’s major animals include the cheetah, African elephant, lion, zebra, Egyptian mongoose, and giraffe.

What number of African nations are there?

The area of mainland Africa is shared by 48 countries, plus six island nations are considered to be part of the continent. There are 54 sovereign African countries in total, as well as two disputed areas, Somaliland (an autonomous region of Somalia) and Western Sahara (occupied by Morocco and claimed by the Polisario).

credit – Freepik

REGIONS ON AFRICAS

East-West-Central / Middle -North –South Africa.

East Africa

Is the eastern piece of the African mainland; it incorporates Madagascar and other more modest islands. In a smaller sense, the term East Africa might allude to the previous English frontier areas of present-day Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

SL. NO	EAST AFRICA COUNTRIES	CAPITALS
1	Burundi	Bujumbura
2	Comoros	Moroni
3	Djibouti	Djibouti
4	Eritrea	Asmara
5	Ethiopia	Addis Ababa
6	Kenya	Nairobi
7	Madagascar	Antananarivo
8	Malawi	Lilongwe
9	Mauritius	Port Louis
10	Mozambique	Maputo
11	Reunion(France)	Saint Denis
12	Rwanda	Kigali
13	Seychelles	Victoria
14	Somalia & Somaliland	Mogadishu
15	South Sudan	Juba
16	Tanjania	Dodoma,Dar es salaam
17	Uganda	Kampala
18	Zimbia	Lusaka
19	Zimbabwe	Harare

West Africa

The nations north of the Bay of Guinea in the north-western piece of the mainland. West Africa is situated in the southern piece of the supposed mound of Africa; it is limited in the north by the Sahara desert and the Sahel zone. There are sixteen nations in West Africa and one English Abroad Domain, Holy person Helena.

WEST AFRICA COUNTRIES	CAPITALS
Benin	Porto-Novo ,Cotonou
Burkina Faso	Ouagadougou
Cape Verde	Praia
Cote d’Ivoire(Ivory coast)	Yamoussoukro ,Abidjan
Gambia	Banjul
Ghana	Accra
Guinea	Conakry
Guinea-Bissau	Bissau
Liberia	Monrovia
Mali	Bamako
Mauritania	Nouakchott
Niger	Niamey
Nigeria	Abuja
Saint Helena(UK)	Jamestown
Senegal	Dakar
Sierra Leone	Freetown
Togo	Lome

Central Africa 

The tropical central portion of the African continent is referred to as Central Africa or Middle Africa (as used by the United Nations). Central Africa is made up of nine countries, including the island nation of So Tomé and Prncipe.

CENTRAL AFRICA COUNTRIES	CAPITALS
Angola	Luanda
Cameroon	Yaoundé
Central Africa Republic	Bangui
Chad	N’Djamena
Congo , Democratic Republic	Kinshasa
Congo , Republic	Brazzaville
Equatorial Guinea	Malabo
Gabon	Libreville
Sao Tome & Principe	Sao Tome

North Africa

 The part of Africa along the shoreline of the Mediterranean Ocean (aside from Sudan). In the northwest, the Map book Mountains rule the region.

South of the Mediterranean beach front strip extends the Sahara from the Atlantic Sea in the west to the Red Ocean in the east.

NORTH AFRICA COUNTRIES	CAPITALS
Algeria	Algiers
Egypt	Cairo
Libya	Tripoli
Morocco	Rabat
Sudan	Khartoum
Tunisia	Tunis
Western Sahara	El Aaiun

South Africa

Is the southern part of the African landmass, limited by the South Atlantic Sea in the west and the Indian Sea in the east. The Unified Countries geoscheme records five nations in Southern Africa.

SOUTH AFRICA COUNTRIES	CAPITALS
Botswana	Gaborone
Lesotho	Maseru
Namibia	Windhoek
South Africa	Pretoria,Bloemfontein,Capetown
Swaziland	Mbabane,Lobamba

Credit – Freepik

More about Africa

Highest Point

Africa’s most elevated mountain is situated in Tanzania. The million-year-old stratovolcano Mount Kilimanjaro has a level of 5,895 m (19,340 ft). The three volcanic cones on the mountain are called Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira.Uhuru Top on Kibo is the mountain’s most vital point. The Batian pinnacle of Mount Kenya at 3,825 m (12,549 ft) is Africa’s second-most elevated mountain.

Largest Lake

Lake Victoria or Victoria Nyanza is the biggest of the African Extraordinary Lakes and the second-biggest freshwater lake on the planet. The wellspring of the Nile Waterway has a surface area of 68,800 km² (26,600 sq mi); it is shared by Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Longest River
The longest waterway in Africa is the Nile at 6,695 km, it is additionally the longest stream on the planet. The Nile streams from its source south of the equator through eleven nations and purges into the Mediterranean Ocean.

Languages of Africa

Around 1,000 dialects are spoken on the landmass, separated into four (or six) significant language families: Afro-Asiatic (e.g., Berber (Amazigh) dialects, Arabic), Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo (Bantu), and Khoi-San.