Welcome to Africa!
Africa is the wellspring of the human race. The second largest continent in the world in both area and population, it offers the visitor a unique blend of natural wonders, renowned prehistoric sites, numerous and often sprawling remains of several of the world's greatest ancient civilisations, vibrant cultures, remote villages and modern cities. Africa has shorelines on the Indian Ocean to the southeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Red Sea to the northeast, the Gulf of Aden slightly further south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north. This huge continent is more than 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across north-south and 7,500 km (4,800 mi) east-west with some islands even further out and contains many vastly different peoples, religions, and cultures. Africa has more than 50 sovereign countries—the most of any continent.
Africa's Nile River is claimed by some to be the longest river in the world (other geographers argue that the Amazon is longer), the Nile runs 6,650 km (over 4,100 mi) from Burundi to Egypt. The Congo River in the DR Congo is the second largest in terms of discharge, and the deepest with a depth of over 230 m (750 ft) in some spots. Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is the world's tallest free-standing mountain at 5,890 m (19,340 ft). Lake Assal in Djibouti is the second-lowest point on Earth, the saltiest lake outside Antarctica, and one of the hottest places on Earth. While the first activity most people associate with Africa is safaris, there are endless possibilities for adventure. For example, you can purchase crafts in markets, venture into the Sahara with a Tuareg caravan, visit traditional villages, hike through the jungle to watch gorillas, climb mountains with rugged landscapes and icy peaks, snorkel in the numerous marine parks while feeding fish, relax on tropical islands in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, snack on exotic treats, paddle down a river in a dugout pirogue or travel across savanna on a colonial-era railway.
Africa's cultural diversity cannot be overstated — most countries are internally diverse and there are huge differences between the Muslim countries in the north with their Arab- and Berber-influenced cultures and the Sub-Saharan nations, including the rainbow nation of South Africa that has strong European influences in addition to Bantu and other African traditions. It is also the continent with the largest genetic diversity among the population by far: There is far more genetic diversity among Africans than there is between Africans and inhabitants of any other continent. Despite what lacking media coverage might have led you to believe, Africa is not one country but over 50 countries, making it impossible to make generalisations about "all of Africa". Also, partly due to the nature of colonial borders, most African countries are anything but homogeneous (for example, South Africa has 11 official languages), and culture, cuisine, language or even the dominant religion may change dramatically within a few hundred kilometres without ever crossing a border.
Despite rapidly growing economies in many places, there are still many pockets of poverty in both the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa. While poverty, corruption, and ethnic and religious violence exist in some parts of the continent, large parts of Africa have made impressive progress, with many cities that have growing middle classes and deal with problems such as traffic jams or crowded public transport, rather than the war or famine you might have heard about in some 1980s documentary or development aid commercial.
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area. With 1.3 billion people as of 2018, it accounts for about 16% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita, in part due to geographic impediments, legacies of European colonization in Africa and the Cold War, predatory/neo-colonialistic activities by Western nations and China, and undemocratic rule and deleterious policies. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context.
The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It contains 54 fully recognised sovereign states (countries), eight territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Algeria is Africa's largest country by area, and Nigeria is its largest by population. African nations cooperate through the establishment of the African Union, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa.
Africa straddles the equator and the prime meridian making it the only continent in the world to be situated in all four cardinal hemispheres. It is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. The majority of the continent and its countries are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and 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, 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 home to much biodiversity, 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 other issues. 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 has often been under-appreciated by the global historical community. Africa, particularly Eastern Africa, is widely accepted as the place of origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes). The earliest hominids and their ancestors have been dated to around 7 million years ago, including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster— the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) remains, found in Ethiopia, South Africa, and Morocco, date to circa 200,000, 259,000, and 300,000 years ago respectively, and Homo sapiens is believed to have originated in Africa around 350,000–260,000 years ago. Due to being the longest inhabited continent, Africa is also considered by anthropologists to be the most genetically diverse continent on the planet.Early human civilizations, such as Ancient Egypt and Carthage emerged in North Africa. Following a subsequent long and complex history of civilizations, migration and trade, Africa hosts a large diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. The last 400 years have witnessed an increasing European influence on the continent. Starting in the 16th century, this was driven by trade, including the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which created large African diaspora populations in the Americas. In the late 19th century, European countries colonized almost all of Africa, extracting resources from the continent and exploiting local communities, most present states in Africa emerged from a process of decolonisation in the 20th century.