Africa

Africa
Area	30,370,000 km2 (11,730,000 sq mi) (2nd)
Population	1,393,676,444 (2021; 2nd)
Population density	36.4/km2 (94/sq mi)
GDP (nominal)	$2.45 trillion (2019; 5th)
GDP (PPP)	$7.16 trillion (2019; 5th)
GDP per capita	$1,930 (2019; 6th)
Demonym	African
Countries	54 (and 2 disputed)
Dependencies	External (1) Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; Internal (6) Canary Islands; Ceuta; Madeira; Mayotte; Melilla; Réunion;
Languages	1250–3000 native languages
Time zones	UTC-1 to UTC+4
Largest cities	Largest urban areas: Cairo; Lagos; Kinshasa; Johannesburg; Luanda; Khartoum; Dar es Salaam; Abidjan; Alexandria; Nairobi; Cape Town; Kano; Dakar; Casablanca; Addis Ababa;

Africa is the second largest continent in the world. It makes up about a fifth of the world's total land.^[4] It is surrounded by large areas of water. There are 54 fully recognised and independent countries in Africa, and 14.7% (1.216 billion) of the world's population lives there.^[4] It is thought to be the continent where the first humans evolved.

History

Civilizations before European colonization.

The history of Africa begins with the first modern human beings and continues to its present difficult state as a politically developing continent.

Africa's ancient historic period includes the rise of Egyptian civilization. It also includes the development of other societies outside the Nile River Valley, and the interaction between these societies and civilizations outside of Africa. In the late 7th century, North and East Africa were heavily influenced by the spread of Islam. That led to the appearance of new cultures, like the Swahili people and the Mali Empire, whose king, Musa Keita I, became one of the richest and most influential people of the early 14th century. This also led to an increase in the slave trade, which had a very bad influence on Africa’s development until the 19th century.

Slavery

Slavery has long been practiced in Africa, just like the rest of the world.^[5]^[6] But two new slave trades would create a much bigger and more violent version of slavery.

Between the 7th and 20th centuries, the Arab slave trade took 18 million slaves from Africa via trans-Saharan routes and the Indian Ocean. Between the 15th and 20th centuries (a period of 500 years), the Atlantic slave trade took an estimated 7–12 million slaves to the Americas.^[7]^[8]^[9] While some Africans collaborated with European and Asian slave traders, many were strongly opposed to slavery and avoided, protested, or fought it violently.^[10]^[11]

Africans who had been captured and sent to the French colony of Saint Domingue on slave ships played an important role in ending the Atlantic slave trade. They began the Haitian Revolution, which created Haiti, the first country to permanently ban slavery.^[12] After this revolution, European empires began to reduce slave trading and abolitionism became more popular. Between 1808 and 1860, the British Navy captured approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.^[13]

Colonialism

In the late 19th century, the European powers occupied much of the continent, creating many colonial and dependent territories. They left only two fully independent states: Liberia and Ethiopia (which the Europeans called “Abyssinia").

Egypt and Sudan were never formally made a part of any European colonial empire. However, after the British occupation of 1882, Egypt was effectively under British administration until 1922.

Modern history

African independence movements had their first success in 1951, when Libya became the first former colony to become independent. Modern African history is full of revolutions and wars, as well as the growth of modern African economies and democratization across the continent.

A civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) began in 1998. Neighbouring African countries have become involved. Since the conflict began, it has killed an estimated 5.5 million people.^[14]

Political associations such as the African Union offer hope for greater co-operation and peace between the continent's many countries.

Climate

From north to south, Africa has most types of climate. In sequence from the north:

Alpine and mediterranean climate
Dry sandy desert
Cold deserts
Fairly dry savannah (grassland)
Rain forest
More grassland
More deserts
Table Mountain
Temperature excursions

Running north-east to the south is the East African Great Rift Valley. This has mountains, volcanoes, deep rifts and valleys, rivers and lakes.

In fact, Africa has examples of most of the Earth's climate types.

Rainfall

Much of North Africa is dry and hot: it is dominated by the Sahara Desert and does not receive much rain. In Saharan Africa, there are few rivers or other water sources. Underground water sources are very important in the desert. These often form oases. An oasis is an area of vegetation (plant life) surrounded by desert.

In that part of the world, the wind comes mostly from the east. That does bring rain, but the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau block the monsoon rain and prevent it from getting to North Africa. Also, the Atlas Mountains near the north coast of Africa prevent rain from coming in from the north. That is another rain shadow.

These two rain shadows are mainly responsible for the Sahara desert.

Conditions and winds are different further south, where huge amounts of rainfall near the equator. The equator runs across the middle of Africa (see red line drawn on map). That means much of Africa is between the two tropics:

Plants and animals

This oasis, in Libya, has lots of plants growing around it.

Africa has a lot of wildlife.^[15]^[16] There are many types of animals there. In particular, it is now the only continent that has many native species of large mammals. Some of them occur in very large numbers. There are antelope, buffalo, zebra, cheetah, elephant, lion, giraffe, rhinoceros, apes, hyaena, and a lot more. Over 2,000 types of fish live in African lakes and rivers.^[17]

Politics

The African Union (AU) is an international organisation. It 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. It is led by the African Union President and Head of State, who is also the President of the Pan African Parliament. A person becomes President of the AU by being elected to the PAP and then gaining majority support in the PAP.

Extensive human rights abuses still occur in several parts of Africa, often under the oversight of the state. Most of such violations occur for political reasons, often as a side effect of civil war. Countries where major human rights violations have been reported in recent times include Uganda,^[18] Sierra Leone,^[19] Liberia, Sudan,^[20] Zimbabwe,^[21] and Côte d'Ivoire.^[22] There are 54 UN member states in Africa.

People

Africa was the homeland for the first people. People who come from Africa are called Africans. People in the north are called North Africans and people in the south are called South Africans. Languages in eastern Africa include Swahili, Oromo and Amharic. Languages in western Africa include Lingala, Igbo, Hausa and Fulani. The most popular language in Northern Africa is Arabic. The most populated country in Africa is Nigeria.

Countries

Country	Area (km²)	Population	Year	Density (per km²)	Capital
Northern Africa
Algeria	2,381,740	34,178,188	2009	14	Algiers
Canary Islands (Spain)	7,492	2,118,519	2010	226	Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Ceuta (Spain)	20	71,505	2001	3,575	—
Egypt	1,001,450	82,868,000	2012	83	Cairo
Libya	1,759,540	6,310,434	2009	4	Tripoli
Madeira (Portugal)	797	245,000	2001	307	Funchal
Melilla (Spain)	12	66,411	2001	5,534	—
Morocco	446,550	34,859,364	2009	78	Rabat
Sudan	1,861,484	30,894,000	2008	17	Khartoum
Tunisia	163,610	10,486,339	2009	64	Tunis
Western Sahara	266,000	405,210	2009	2	El Aaiún
Horn of Africa
Djibouti	23,000	942,333	2016	22	Djibouti
Eritrea	121,320	5,647,168	2016	47	Asmara
Ethiopia	1,127,127	102,403,196	2016	75	Addis Ababa
Somalia	637,657	14,317,996	2017	15	Mogadishu
East Africa
Burundi	27,830	8,988,091	2009	323	Gitega, Bujumbura
Comoros	2,170	752,438	2009	347	Moroni
Kenya	582,650	39,002,772	2009	66	Nairobi
Madagascar	587,040	20,653,556	2009	35	Antananarivo
Malawi	118,480	14,268,711	2009	120	Lilongwe
Mauritius, British Indian Ocean Territory	2,040	1,284,264	2009	630	Port Louis
Mayotte (France)	374	223,765	2009	490	Mamoudzou
Mozambique	801,590	21,669,278	2009	27	Maputo
Réunion (France)	2,512	743,981	2002	296	Saint-Denis
Rwanda	26,338	10,473,282	2009	398	Kigali
Seychelles	455	87,476	2009	192	Victoria
South Sudan	619,745	8,260,490	2008	13	Juba
Tanzania	945,087	44,929,002	2009	43	Dodoma
Uganda	236,040	32,369,558	2009	137	Kampala
Zambia	752,614	11,862,740	2009	16	Lusaka
Central Africa
Angola	1,246,700	12,799,293	2009	10	Luanda
Cameroon	475,440	18,879,301	2009	40	Yaoundé
Central African Republic	622,984	4,511,488	2009	7	Bangui
Chad	1,284,000	10,329,208	2009	8	N'Djamena
Republic of the Congo	342,000	4,012,809	2009	12	Brazzaville
Democratic Republic of the Congo	2,345,410	69,575,000	2012	30	Kinshasa
Equatorial Guinea	28,051	633,441	2009	23	Malabo
Gabon	267,667	1,514,993	2009	6	Libreville
São Tomé and Príncipe	1,001	212,679	2009	212	São Tomé
Southern Africa
Botswana	600,370	1,990,876	2009	3	Gaborone
Lesotho	30,355	2,130,819	2009	70	Maseru
Namibia	825,418	2,108,665	2009	3	Windhoek
South Africa	1,219,912	51,770,560	2011	42	Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Pretoria
Swaziland	17,363	1,123,913	2009	65	Mbabane
Zimbabwe	390,580	11,392,629	2009	29	Harare
West Africa
Benin	112,620	8,791,832	2009	78	Porto-Novo
Burkina Faso	274,200	15,746,232	2009	57	Ouagadougou
Cape Verde	4,033	429,474	2009	107	Praia
Côte d'Ivoire	322,460	20,617,068	2009	64	Abidjan, Yamoussoukro
Gambia	11,300	1,782,893	2009	158	Banjul
Ghana	239,460	23,832,495	2009	100	Accra
Guinea	245,857	10,057,975	2009	41	Conakry
Guinea-Bissau	36,120	1,533,964	2009	43	Bissau
Liberia	111,370	3,441,790	2009	31	Monrovia
Mali	1,240,000	12,666,987	2009	10	Bamako
Mauritania	1,030,700	3,129,486	2009	3	Nouakchott
Niger	1,267,000	15,306,252	2009	12	Niamey
Nigeria	923,768	166,629,000	2012	180	Abuja
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom)	420	7,728	2012	13	Jamestown
Senegal	196,190	13,711,597	2009	70	Dakar
Sierra Leone	71,740	6,440,053	2009	90	Freetown
Togo	56,785	6,019,877	2009	106	Lomé
Africa Total	30,368,609	1,001,320,281	2009	33