Portal:Africa


Satellite map of Africa
Satellite map of Africa
Location of Africa on the world map
Location of Africa on the world map

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surface area. With nearly 1.4 billion people as of 2021, it accounts for about 18% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest among all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Based on 2024 projections, Africa's population will reach 3.8 billion people by 2099. Africa is the least wealthy inhabited continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, ahead of Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, corruption, colonialism, the Cold War, and neocolonialism. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and a large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context. Africa has a large quantity of natural resources and food resources, including diamonds, sugar, salt, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum, natural gas, cocoa beans, and.

Africa straddles the equator and the prime meridian. It is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to the southern temperate zones. The majority of the continent and its countries are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and a number of countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Most of the continent lies in the tropics, except for a large part of Western Sahara, Algeria, Libya and Egypt, the northern tip of Mauritania, and the entire territories of Morocco, Ceuta, Melilla, and Tunisia, which in turn are located above the tropic of Cancer, in the northern temperate zone. In the other extreme of the continent, southern Namibia, southern Botswana, great parts of South Africa, the entire territories of Lesotho and Eswatini and the southern tips of Mozambique and Madagascar are located below the tropic of Capricorn, in the southern temperate zone.

Africa is highly biodiverse; it is the continent with the largest number of megafauna species, as it was least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. However, Africa also is heavily affected by a wide range of environmental issues, including desertification, deforestation, water scarcity, and pollution. These entrenched environmental concerns are expected to worsen as climate change impacts Africa. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified Africa as the continent most vulnerable to climate change.

The history of Africa is long, complex, and varied, and has often been under-appreciated by the global historical community. In African societies the oral word is revered, and they have generally recorded their history via oral tradition, which has led anthropologists to term them oral civilisations, contrasted with literate civilisations which pride the written word. During the colonial period, oral sources were deprecated by European historians, which gave them the impression Africa had no recorded history. African historiography became organized at the academic level in the mid-20th century, and saw a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach, culminating in the General History of Africa, edited by specialists from across the continent. (Full article...)

For a topic outline, see Outline of Africa.
Satellite view of the African Great Lakes region and its coastline

The African Great Lakes (Swahili: Maziwa Makuu; Kinyarwanda: Ibiyaga bigari) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tanganyika, the world's second-largest freshwater lake by volume and depth; Lake Malawi, the world's eighth-largest freshwater lake by area; and Lake Turkana, the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake. Collectively, they contain 31,000 km3 (7,400 cu mi) of water, which is more than either Lake Baikal or the North American Great Lakes. This total constitutes about 25% of the planet's unfrozen surface fresh water. The large rift lakes of Africa are the ancient home of great biodiversity, and 10% of the world's fish species live in this region.

Countries in the area which are bounded by the lakes of the Great Lakes region include Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, and Uganda. (Full article...)

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Zewail in 2010

Ahmed Hassan Zewail (February 26, 1946 – August 2, 2016) was an Egyptian-American chemist, known as the "father of femtochemistry". He was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry and became the first Egyptian and Arab to win a Nobel Prize in a scientific field, and the second African to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry, a professor of physics, and the director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at the California Institute of Technology. (Full article...)

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Flag of the Republic of Cameroon
Flag of the Republic of Cameroon
Coat of Arms of the Republic of Cameroon
Coat of Arms of the Republic of Cameroon
Location of Cameroon

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a unitary republic of central and western Africa. It borders Nigeria to the west, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Bonny, part of the Gulf of Guinea. The highest point is Mount Cameroon in the southwest, and the largest cities are Douala, Yaoundé, and Garoua. Cameroon is home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups.

Compared with other African countries, Cameroon enjoys relative political and social stability. This has permitted the development of agriculture, roads, railways, and large petroleum and timber industries. Nevertheless, large numbers of Cameroonians live in poverty as subsistence farmers. Power lies firmly in the hands of the president, Paul Biya, and his Cameroon People's Democratic Movement party, and corruption is widespread. The Anglophone community has grown increasingly alienated from the government, and Anglophone politicians have called for greater decentralisation and even the secession of the former British-governed territories. (Read more...)

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Juba (/ˈbə/) is the capital and largest city of South Sudan. The city is situated on the White Nile and also serves as the capital of the Central Equatoria State. It is the most recently declared national capital and had a population of 525,953 in 2017. It has an area of 52 km2 (20 sq mi), with the metropolitan area covering 336 km2 (130 sq mi).

Juba was established in 1920–21 by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in a small Bari village, also called Juba. The city was made as the capital of Mongalla Province in the late 1920s. The growth of the town accelerated following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, which made Juba the capital of the Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan. Juba became the capital of South Sudan in 2011 after its independence, but influential parties wanted Ramciel to be the capital. The government announced the move of the capital to Ramciel, but it is yet to occur. (Full article...)

In the news

12 February 2024 –
Two boats collide on the Congo River near Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; with the death toll remains unclear. (AP)
11 February 2024 – 2023 Africa Cup of Nations
In association football, hosts Ivory Coast win their third Africa Cup of Nations by defeating Nigeria 2–1 in the final. Sébastien Haller scores the winning goal in the 81st minute. (The Guardian)
10 February 2024 – Somali civil war
Four Emirati soldiers and a Bahraini military officer are killed, while ten other people are injured, when a soldier opens fire at a military base in Mogadishu, Somalia, before being killed in the ensuing shootout. Al-Shabaab claims responsibility. (AP)
10 February 2024 –
A Eurocopter EC130 helicopter crashes near Nipton, California, United States, killing all the six people on board, including Nigerian banker Herbert Wigwe. (CBS News)
10 February 2024 – 2023–2024 Senegalese protests
Violent protests occur in Senegal following an announcement by President Macky Sall that presidential elections have been delayed from February 25 to December 15. (Sky News)
9 February 2024 –
At least 18 people are killed during a collision between a bus and a truck on a road in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (AP)

Updated: 16:33, 14 February 2024

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Africa topics

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Major Religions in Africa


North Africa

West Africa

Central Africa

East Africa

Southern Africa

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