Africa is the world's second-largest and second
most-populous
continent, after
Asia. At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million
sq mi) including adjacent islands, it
covers 6% of the
Earth's total surface area
and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of
2009, see
table) in 61
territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the
World's
human population.
The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean
Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red
Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Not counting the disputed territory of
Western
Sahara, there are 53 countries, including Madagascar and various island groups, associated with the
continent.
Africa,
particularly central eastern Africa,
is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin
of humans and the Hominidae tree (great apes), as
evidenced by the discovery of the earliest
hominids and their ancestors, as well as
later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago –
including Sahelanthropus
tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus,
A. afarensis,
Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest
Homo sapiens (modern human)
found in Ethiopia being dated
to ca. 200,000 years ago.
Africa straddles the
equator and encompasses
numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from
the northern
temperate to southern
temperate zones.
Etymology
Afri was the name of several peoples who dwelt in
North Africa near Carthage. Their name is usually connected with
Phoenician afar,
"dust", but a 1981 theory has asserted that it stems from a
Berber word
ifri or Ifran
meaning "cave", in reference to cave dwellers.
Africa or Ifri or Afer
is name of Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania (Berber Tribe of Yafran)
.
Under
Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of Africa Province, which also included the
coastal part of modern Libya. The
Roman suffix "-ca" denotes "country or land".
The later Muslim
kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also
preserved a form of the name.
Other etymologies that have been postulated for the ancient name
"Africa":
- the 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Ant.
1.15) asserted that it was named for Epher, grandson of Abraham
according to Gen. 25:4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded
Libya.
- Latin word aprica ("sunny")
mentioned by Isidore of Seville
in Etymologiae XIV.5.2.
- the Greek word aphrike, meaning "without cold." This
was proposed by historian Leo
Africanus (1488–1554), who suggested the Greek word
phrike (φρίκη, meaning "cold and horror"), combined with
the privative prefix "a-", thus indicating a land free of cold
and horror.
- Massey, in 1881, derived an etymology from the Egyptian
af-rui-ka, "to turn toward the opening of the Ka." The
Ka is the energetic double of every person and
"opening of the Ka" refers to a womb or birthplace. Africa would
be, for the Egyptians, "the birthplace."
The
Irish female name is sometimes
anglicised as
Africa, but the
given name is unrelated to the
geonym.
History
Paleohistory
At the beginning of the
Mesozoic Era,
Africa was joined with Earth's other continents in
Pangaea. Africa shared the supercontinent's
relatively uniform fauna which was dominated by theropods,
prosauropods and primitive ornithischians by the close of the
Triassic period. Late Triassic fossils are found through-out
Africa, but are more common in the south than north. The boundary
separating the Triassic and Jurassic marks the advent of an
extinction event with global impact, although African strata from
this time period have not been thoroughly studied.
Early Jurassic strata are distributed in a similar fashion to Late
Triassic beds, with more common outcrops in the south and less
common fossil beds which are predominated by tracks to the north.
As the Jurassic proceeded, larger and more iconic groups of
dinosaurs like sauropods and ornithopods proliferated in Africa.
Middle Jurassic strata are neither well represented nor well
studied in Africa. Late Jurassic strata are also poorly represented
apart from the spectacular Tendeguru fauna in Tanzania. The Late
Jurassic life of Tendeguru is very similar to
that found in western
North America's
Morrison
Formation.
Midway through the Mesozoic, about 150–160 million years ago,
Madagascar separated from Africa, although it remained connected to
India and the rest of the Gondwanan landmasses. Fossils from
Madagascar include
abelisaurs and
titanosaurs.
Later into the Early Cretaceous epoch, the India-Madagascar
landmass separated from the rest of Gondwana. By the Late
Cretaceous, Madagascar and India had permanently split ways and
continued until later reaching their modern configurations.
By contrast to Madagascar, mainland Africa was relatively stable in
position through-out the Mesozoic. Despite the stable position,
major changes occurred to its relation to other landmasses as the
remains of Pangea continued to break apart. By the beginning of the
Late Cretaceous epoch South America had split off from Africa,
completing the southern half of the Atlantic Ocean. This event had
a profound effect on global climate by altering ocean
currents.
During the Cretaceous, Africa was populated by allosauroids and
spinosaurids, including the largest known carnivorous dinosaurs.
Titanosaurs were significant herbivores in its ancient ecosystems.
Cretaceous sites are more common than Jurassic ones, but are often
unable to be dated radiometrically making it difficult to know
their exact ages. Paleontologist Louis Jacobs, who spent time doing
field work in Malawi, says that African beds are "in need of more
field work" and will prove to be a "fertile ground ... for
discovery."
Pre-history
Africa is
considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest
inhabited territory on Earth, with the human
species originating from the continent.
During the middle of the twentieth century,
anthropologists discovered many
fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as
early as 7 million years ago. Fossil remains of several species of
early apelike humans thought to have
evolved into modern man, such as
Australopithecus afarensis
(
radiometrically dated to
approximately 3.9–3.0 million years
BC),
Paranthropus boisei (c.
2.3–1.4 million years BC) and
Homo ergaster (c.
1.9 million–600,000 years BC) have been discovered.
Throughout humanity's
prehistory, Africa
(like all other continents) had no
nation
states, and was instead inhabited by groups of
hunter-gatherers such as the
Khoi and
San.
At the end of the
Ice Ages, estimated to
have been around 10,500 BC, the Sahara had again become a green
fertile valley, and its African populations returned from the
interior and coastal highlands in
Sub-Saharan Africa . However, the warming
and drying climate meant that by 5000 BC the Sahara region was
becoming increasingly dry and hostile. The population trekked out
of the Sahara region towards the Nile Valley below the
Second Cataract where they made permanent or
semi-permanent settlements. A major climatic recession occurred,
lessening the heavy and persistent rains in Central and
Eastern Africa.
Since this time dry
conditions have prevailed in Eastern Africa, and increasingly
during the last 200 years, in Ethiopia.
The domestication of cattle in Africa preceded agriculture and
seems to have existed alongside hunter-gathering cultures. It is
speculated that by 6000 BC cattle were already domesticated in
North Africa. In the Sahara-Nile complex, people domesticated many
animals including the pack ass, and a small screw horned goat which
was common from Algeria to
Nubia.In the year
4000 BC the climate of the Sahara started to become drier at an
exceedingly fast pace.O'Brien, Patrick K. (General Editor). Oxford
Atlas of World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
pp.22–23 This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink
significantly and caused increasing
desertification. This, in turn, decreased
the amount of land conducive to settlements and helped to cause
migrations of farming communities to the more tropical climate of
West Africa.
By the first millennium BC
ironworking had
been introduced in Northern Africa and quickly spread across the
Sahara into the northern parts of sub-Saharan Africa and by 500 BC
metalworking began to become commonplace in West Africa.
Ironworking was fully established by roughly 500 BC in many areas
of East and West Africa, although other regions didn't begin
ironworking until the early centuries AD. Copper objects from
Egypt, North Africa, Nubia and Ethiopia dating from around 500 BC
have been excavated in West Africa, suggesting that trans-saharan
trade networks had been established by this date.
Early civilizations
At about 3300 BC, the historical record opens in Northern Africa
with the rise of literacy in the
Pharaonic
civilisation of
Ancient Egypt. One of
the world's earliest and longest-lasting civilizations, the
Egyptian state continued, with varying levels of influence over
other areas, until 343 BC.
Egyptian influence reached deep into
modern-day Libya, north to Crete and Canaan ,
and south to the kingdoms of Aksum and Nubia . An independent centre of civilisation with trading links to Phoenicia was established on the north-west African coast at
Carthage.
European exploration of
Africa began with
Ancient Greeks
and
Romans. In 332 BC,
Alexander the Great was welcomed as a
liberator in
Persian-occupied
Egypt.
He founded Alexandria in Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital
of the Ptolemaic dynasty after his
death. Following the conquest of North Africa's
Mediterranean coastline by the
Roman
Empire, the area was integrated economically and culturally
into the Roman system.
Roman
settlement occurred in modern Tunisia and elsewhere along the
coast.
Christianity
spread across these areas from Palestine via Egypt, also passing
south, beyond the borders of the Roman world into Nubia and by at least the 6th century into Ethiopia.
In the early 7th century, the newly formed Arabian Islamic
Caliphate expanded into Egypt, and then into North
Africa. In a short while the local Berber elite had been integrated
into Muslim Arab tribes.
When the Ummayad capital Damascus fell in
the eight century, the Islamic center of the Mediterranean shifted
from Syria to Qayrawan in North Africa. Islamic North Africa had
become diverse, and a hub for mystics, scholars, jurists and
philosophers. During the above mentioned period, Islam spread to
sub-Saharan Africa, mainly through trade routes and
migration.
9th–18th century
Pre-colonial Africa possessed perhaps as many as 10,000 different
states and polities characterised by many different sorts of
political organisation and rule. These included small family groups
of hunter-gatherers such as the
San people
of southern Africa; larger, more structured groups such as the
family clan groupings of the
Bantu-speaking people of central and
southern Africa, heavily structured clan groups in the
Horn of Africa, the large Sahelian Kingdoms,
and autonomous city-states and kingdoms such as those of the
Yoruba and
Igbo
people (also misspelled as Ibo) in West Africa, and the
Swahili coastal trading towns of
East Africa.
By the 9th century AD a string of dynastic states, including the
earliest
Hausa states, stretched across the
sub-saharan savannah from the western regions to central Sudan.
The most
powerful of these states were Ghana,
Gao, and the Kanem-Bornu
Empire. Ghana declined in the 11th century but was
succeeded by the
Mali Empire which
consolidated much of western Sudan in the 13th century. Kanem
accepted Islam in the 11th century.
In the forested regions of the West African coast, independent
kingdoms grew up with little influence from the
Muslim north. The
Kingdom of
Nri of the
Igbo was established
around the 9th century and was one of the first.
It is also one of the
oldest Kingdom in modern day Nigeria and was ruled by the Eze
Nri. The Nri kingdom is famous for its elaborate
bronzes, found at the town of
Igbo
Ukwu. The bronzes have been dated from as far
back as the 9th century.
The
Ife, historically the first of these Yoruba city-states or kingdoms, established
government under a priestly oba, (oba means
'king' or 'ruler' in the Yoruba
language), called the Ooni of Ife. Ife was noted as
a major religious and cultural centre in Africa, and for its unique
naturalistic tradition of bronze sculpture. The Ife model of
government was adapted at
Oyo, where its
obas or kings, called the
Alaafins of
Oyo once controlled a large number of other Yoruba and non
Yoruba city states and Kingdoms, the
Fon
Kingdom of Dahomey was one of the
non Yoruba domains under Oyo control.
The
Almoravids, was a
Berber dynasty from the
Sahara
that spread over a wide area of northwestern Africa and the Iberian
peninsula during the 11th century. The
Banu
Hilal and
Banu Ma'qil were a collection of
Arab Bedouin tribes from
the
Arabian peninsula who migrated
westwards via Egypt between the 11th and 13th centuries. Their
migration resulted in the fusion of
the Arabs and Berbers, where the locals were
Arabized, and Arab culture absorbed elements of
the local culture, under the unifying framework of Islam.
Following the breakup of Mali a local leader named
Sonni Ali (1464–1492) founded the
Songhai Empire in the region of middle Niger
and the western Sudan and took control of the trans-Saharan trade.
Sonni Ali
seized Timbuktu in 1468 and Jenne in 1473,
building his regime on trade revenues and the cooperation of Muslim
merchants. His successor
Askia
Mohammad I (1493–1528) made Islam the official religion, built
mosques, and brought Muslim scholars, including al-Maghili
(d.1504), the founder of an important tradition of Sudanic African
Muslim scholarship, to Gao.
By the 11th century some Hausa states – such as Kano, jigawa, Katsina, and Gobir – had developed
into walled towns engaging in trade, servicing caravans, and the manufacture of goods.
Until the 15th century these small states were on the periphery of
the major Sudanic empires of the era, paying tribute to Songhai to
the west and Kanem-Borno to the east.
Height of slave trade
Slavery has been practiced in Africa, as
well as other places, throughout recorded history. Between the
seventh and twentieth centuries,
Arab
slave trade (also known as slavery in the East) took 18 million
slaves from Africa via trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean routes.
Between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the
Atlantic slave trade took 7–12 million
slaves to the New World.
In
West Africa, the decline of the
Atlantic slave trade in the 1820s caused dramatic economic shifts
in local polities. The gradual decline of slave-trading, prompted
by a lack of demand for slaves in the
New
World, increasing
anti-slavery
legislation in Europe and America, and the
British Royal Navy's increasing presence off the
West African coast, obliged African states to adopt new economies.
Between 1808 and 1860, the British
West Africa Squadron seized
approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were
aboard.
Action was also taken against African
leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the
trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in
1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African
rulers.
The largest powers of West Africa: the
Asante
Confederacy, the Kingdom of Dahomey, and
the Oyo Empire, adopted different ways of
adapting to the shift. Asante and Dahomey concentrated on
the development of "legitimate commerce" in the form of
palm oil,
cocoa,
timber and
gold, forming the
bedrock of West Africa's modern export trade. The Oyo Empire,
unable to adapt, collapsed into civil wars.
Colonialism and the "Scramble for Africa"
European territorial claims on the
African continent in 1914
In the
late nineteenth century, the European imperial powers engaged in a major territorial scramble and occupied most
of the continent, creating many colonial
nation states, and leaving only two independent nations: Liberia, an independent state partly settled by African Americans; and Orthodox Christian
Ethiopia (known to Europeans as "Abyssinia").
Colonial rule by Europeans would continue until after the
conclusion of World War II, when all colonial states gradually
obtained formal independence.
Independence movements in Africa gained momentum following World
War II, which left the major European powers weakened.
In 1951, Libya, a former
Italian colony, gained independence. In 1956, Tunisia and Morocco won their independence from France.
Ghana followed
suit the next year, becoming the first of the sub-Saharan colonies
to be freed. Most of the rest of the continent became
independent over the next decade, most often through relatively
peaceful means, though in some countries, notably Algeria, it came
only after a violent struggle. Though South Africa was one of the
first African countries to gain independence, it remained under the
rule of its white settler population, in a policy known as
Apartheid, until 1994.
Post-colonial Africa
Today, Africa contains 53 independent and sovereign countries, most
of which still have the borders drawn during the era of European
colonialism. Since colonialism, African states have frequently been
hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and
authoritarianism. The vast majority of
African nations are
republics that operate
under some form of the
presidential
system of rule. However, few of them have been able to sustain
democratic governments, and many have
instead cycled through a series of
coups, producing
military dictatorships. A number of
Africa's post-colonial political leaders were military generals who
were poorly educated and ignorant on matters of governance. Great
instability, however, was mainly the result of marginalization of
other ethnic groups and graft under these leaders. For
political gain, many leaders fanned ethnic
conflicts that had been exacerbated, or even created, by colonial
rule. In many countries, the
military
was perceived as being the only group that could effectively
maintain order, and it ruled many nations in Africa during the
1970s and early 1980s. During the period from the early 1960s to
the late 1980s, Africa had more than 70 coups and 13 presidential
assassinations. Border and territorial
disputes were also common, with the European-imposed borders of
many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts.
Cold War conflicts between the United States and
the Soviet
Union, as well as the policies of the International Monetary Fund, also played a role in instability. When a
country became independent for the first time, it was often
expected to align with one of the two
superpowers. 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.
The 1970s saw an escalation, as newly
independent Angola and
Mozambique aligned themselves with the Soviet Union, and the
West and South Africa sought to contain Soviet influence by funding
insurgency movements. There was a
major famine in
Ethiopia, when hundreds of thousands of people starved. Some
claimed that Marxist/Soviet polices made the situation worse.
The most devastating military conflict in modern independent Africa
has been the
Second Congo War. By
2008, this conflict and its aftermath had killed 5.4 million
people. Since 2003 there has been an ongoing
conflict in Darfur which has become a
humanitarian disaster.
AIDS has also
been a prevalent issue in post-colonial Africa.
Geography
Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from
the largest landmass of the Earth.
Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean
Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by
the Isthmus of
Suez (transected by the Suez Canal), 163 km (101 miles) wide.
(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); from Cape Verde, 17°33'22" W, the westernmost point, to Ras Hafun in Somalia, 51°27'52" E, the most easterly projection, is a
distance of approximately 7,400 km (4,600 miles).
The coastline is 26,000 km (16,100 miles) long, and the
absence of deep indentations of the shore is illustrated by the
fact that Europe, which covers only 10,400,000 km² (4,010,000
square miles) – about a third of the surface of Africa – has a
coastline of 32,000 km (19,800 miles).
Africa's
largest country is Sudan, and its
smallest country is the Seychelles, an archipelago off the
east coast. The smallest nation on the continental
mainland is The
Gambia.
According
to the ancient Romans, Africa lay to
the west of Egypt, while
"Asia" was used to refer to Anatolia and lands to the east. A definite line was
drawn between the two continents by the geographer Ptolemy (85–165 AD), indicating Alexandria along the Prime
Meridian and making the isthmus of Suez and the Red
Sea the boundary between Asia and Africa. As
Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the
idea of
Africa expanded with their knowledge.
Geologically, Africa includes the Arabian Peninsula; the Zagros
Mountains of Iran and the Anatolian Plateau of Turkey mark where the
African Plate collided with
Eurasia. The
Afrotropic
ecozone and the
Saharo-Arabian
desert to its north unite the region biogeographically, and the
Afro-Asiatic language family unites the north
linguistically.
Climate
The climate of Africa ranges from
tropical to
subarctic on its highest peaks. Its northern half
is primarily
desert or
arid, while its central and southern areas contain both
savanna plains and very
dense
jungle (
rainforest) regions. In between, there is a
convergence where vegetation patterns such as
sahel, and
steppe
dominate.
Fauna
Africa boasts perhaps the world's largest combination of 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
non-private plains. It is also home to a variety of jungle
creatures (including
snakes and
primates) and
aquatic
life (including
crocodiles and
amphibians). Africa also has the largest
number of
megafauna species, as it was
least affected by the
extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna.
Ecology
Africa is suffering
deforestation at
twice the world rate, according to the United Nations Environment
Programme (
UNEP). Some sources claim that
deforestation has already wipedout roughly 90% of
West Africa's original forests.
Since the arrival of
humans 2000 years ago, Madagascar has lost more than 90% of its original
forest. About 65% of Africa's agricultural land suffers from
soil degradation.
Politics
The
African Union (AU) is a federation
consisting of all of Africa's states except Morocco. The union was formed, with Addis Ababa as its headquarters, on 26 June 2001.
In July
2004, the African Union's Pan-African Parliament (PAP) was
relocated to Midrand, in South Africa, but the African
Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights remained in Addis Ababa. There is a policy in effect 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. 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 AU President by being elected to
the PAP, and subsequently gaining majority support in the
PAP.
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.
The government of the AU consists of all-union (federal), regional,
state, and municipal authorities, as well as hundreds of
institutions, that together manage the day-to-day affairs of the
institution.
There are clear signs of increased networking among African
organisations and states.
In the civil war in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (former Zaire), rather
than rich, non-African countries intervening, neighbouring African
countries became involved (see also Second Congo War). Since the
conflict began in 1998, the estimated death toll has reached 5
million.Political associations such as the
African Union offer hope for greater
co-operation and peace between the continent's many countries.
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 the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Sierra
Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Côte d'Ivoire.
Economy
Although it has abundant
natural
resources, Africa remains the world's
poorest and most
underdeveloped continent, due to a
variety of causes that may include the spread of deadly
diseases and
viruses (notably
HIV/
AIDS and
malaria),
corrupt governments that have
often committed serious
human
rights violations, failed
central
planning, high levels of
illiteracy,
lack of access to foreign capital, and frequent tribal and military
conflict (ranging from
guerrilla warfare
to
genocide). According to the
United Nations' Human Development Report in
2003, the bottom 25 ranked nations (151st to 175th) were all
African.
Poverty, illiteracy,
malnutrition and
inadequate water supply and sanitation, as well as poor health,
affect a large proportion of the people who reside in the African
continent. In August 2008, the World Bank announced revised global
poverty estimates based on a new international poverty line of
$1.25 per day (versus the previous measure of $1.00).
80.5% of the Sub-Saharan Africa population was living
on less than $2.50 (PPP) a day in 2005, compared with 85.7% for
India. The new figures confirm that sub-Saharan
Africa has been the least successful region of the world in
reducing poverty ($1.25 per day); some 50% of the population living
in poverty in 1981 (200 million people), a figure that rose to 58%
in 1996 before dropping to 50% in 2005 (380 million people). The
average poor person in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to live on
only 70 cents per day, and was poorer in 2003 than he or she was in
1973 indicating increasing poverty in some areas. Some of it is
attributed to unsuccessful economic liberalization programs
spearheaded by foreign companies and governments, but other studies
and reports have cited bad domestic government policies more than
external factors.
From 1995 to 2005, Africa's rate of economic growth increased,
averaging 5% in 2005.
Some countries experienced still higher
growth rates, notably Angola, Sudan and
Equatorial
Guinea, all three of which had recently begun extracting
their petroleum reserves or had expanded
their oil extraction capacity.
The continent has 90% of the world’s
cobalt,
90% of its
platinum, 50% of its
gold, 98% of its
chromium, 70%
of its
tantalite, 64% of its
manganese and one-third of its
uranium. The
DRC has 70% of the
world’s
coltan, and most mobile phones in the
world have coltan in them. The Democratic Republic of the Congo
also has more than 30% of the world’s
diamond reserves.
Guinea is the
world’s largest exporter of bauxite.
In recent
years, the People's Republic of China has built increasingly stronger ties with
African nations. In 2007, Chinese companies invested a total
of US$1 billion in Africa.
Demographics
Africa's population has rapidly increased over the last 40 years,
and consequently it is relatively young. In some African states
half or more of the population is under 25 years of age. African
population grew from 221 million in 1950 to 1 billion in
2009.
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. Bantu-speaking Africans also predominate in
Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and are found in parts of southern
Cameroon.
In the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, the distinct people known as
the Bushmen (also "San", closely related to, but distinct from
"Hottentots") have long been
present. The San are physically distinct from other Africans
and are the indigenous people of southern Africa. Pygmies are the
pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of central Africa.
The peoples of
North Africa comprise
two main groups;
Berber and
Arabic-speaking peoples in the west, and
Egyptians in the east. The
Arabs who arrived in the seventh century introduced the
Arabic language and
Islam to North Africa.
The Semitic Phoenicians, the Iranian Alans, the
European Greeks, Romans and Vandals
settled in North Africa as well. Berbers still make up
the majority in Morocco, while they are a significant minority within
Algeria. They are also present in Tunisia and Libya. The
Tuareg and other often-
nomadic peoples are the principal inhabitants of the
Saharan interior of North Africa.
Nubians
are a
Nilo-Saharan-speaking group
(though many also speak Arabic), who developed an ancient
civilisation in northeast Africa.
Some
Ethiopian and Eritrean groups (like the Amhara and Tigrayans, collectively known as
"Habesha") speak Semitic languages. The
Oromo and
Somali
peoples speak
Cushitic languages, but some
Somali clans trace their founding to legendary Arab founders.
Sudan and
Mauritania are divided between a mostly Arabized north and a
native African south (although the "Arabs" of Sudan clearly have a
predominantly native African ancestry themselves).
Some
areas of East Africa, particularly the island of Zanzibar and the Kenyan island of Lamu, received Arab Muslim and Southwest Asian settlers and merchants
throughout the Middle Ages and in
antiquity.
Prior to the
decolonisation movements
of the post-
World War II era,
Whites were represented in every part of
Africa. Decolonisation during the 1960s and 1970s often resulted in
the mass emigration of European-descended settlers out of Africa –
especially from Algeria (
pieds-noirs), Kenya, Congo, Angola,
Mozambique and Rhodesia. Nevertheless,
White Africans remain an important minority
in many African states. The African country with the largest White
African population is
South Africa. The
Afrikaners, the
Anglo-Africans and the
Coloureds are the largest European-descended groups
in Africa today.
European colonisation also brought sizeable groups of
Asians, particularly people from the
Indian subcontinent, to British
colonies. Large
Indian
communities are found in South Africa, and smaller ones are
present in Kenya, Tanzania, and some other southern and East
African countries. The large
Indian
community in Uganda was
expelled by the
dictator
Idi Amin in 1972, though many have
since returned. The islands in the Indian Ocean are also populated
primarily by people of Asian origin, often mixed with Africans and
Europeans.
The Malagasy
people of Madagascar are an Austronesian
people, but those along the coast are generally mixed with
Bantu, Arab, Indian and European origins. 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). During the 20th century, small but economically
important communities of
Lebanese and
Chinese have also developed in the
larger coastal cities of
West and
East Africa, respectively.
Languages
Map showing the distribution of the
various language families of Africa.
By most
estimates, well over a thousand languages
(UNESCO has
estimated around two thousand) are spoken in Africa. Most
are of African origin, though some are of European or Asian origin.
Africa is the most
multilingual
continent in the world, and it is not rare for individuals to
fluently speak not only multiple African languages, but one or more
European ones as well. There are four major
language families indigenous to Africa.
- The Afro-Asiatic
languages are a language family of about 240 languages and 285
million people widespread throughout the Horn of Africa, North
Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia.
- The Nilo-Saharan
language family consists of more than a hundred languages spoken by
30 million people. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by
Nilotic tribes in Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, and northern Tanzania.
- 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 fifty and are spoken in Southern Africa by
approximately 120,000 people. Many of the Khoisan languages are
endangered. The Khoi and San peoples are
considered the original inhabitants of this part of Africa.
Following the end of
colonialism, nearly
all African countries adopted
official
languages that originated outside the continent, although
several countries also granted legal recognition to indigenous
languages (such as
Swahili,
Yoruba,
Igbo
and
Hausa). In numerous countries,
English and
French (
see African French) are used for
communication in the public sphere such as government, commerce,
education and the media.
Arabic,
Portuguese,
Afrikaans and
Malagasy are examples of languages that
trace their origin to outside of Africa, and that are used by
millions of Africans today, both in the public and private
spheres.
Culture
Modern African culture is characterised by conflicted responses to
Arab nationalism and
European imperialism. Increasingly,
beginning in the late 1990s, Africans have been reasserting their
identity. In
North Africa, especially
because of the rejection of the label
Arab or
European, there is now an upsurge of demands for special protection
of indigenous
Berber languages and
culture in Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. The re-emergence of
Pan-Africanism since the fall of
apartheid has heightened calls for a
renewed sense of African identity. In South Africa, intellectuals
from settler communities of European descent increasingly identify
as African for cultural, rather than geographical or racial,
reasons. Famously, some have undergone ritual ceremonies to become
members of the
Zulu or other communities.
Many aspects of traditional African cultures have become less
practiced in recent years as a result of years of neglect and
suppression by colonial and post-colonial regimes. There is now a
resurgence in the attempts to rediscover and revalourise African
traditional cultures, under such movements as the
African Renaissance, led by
Thabo Mbeki,
Afrocentrism, led by a group of scholars,
including
Molefi Asante, as well as
the increasing recognition of traditional spiritualism through
decriminalization of
Vodou and
other forms of spirituality. In recent years, traditional African
culture has become synonymous with rural poverty and subsistence
farming.
The vast majority of the scholarship on Africa was extraneous and
catered to the demand for exotic and outlandish representations of
Africa. The enforcement of government decrees and policies tended
to produce effects that confirmed the prejudices of the European
colonialists.
Visual art and architecture
African art and
architecture reflect the diversity of
African cultures. The oldest existing examples of art from Africa
are 82,000-year-old
beads made from
Nassarius shells that were found
in the
Aterian levels at Grotte des Pigeons,
Taforalt, Morocco.
The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt was the
world's tallest structure
for 4,000 years, until the completion of Lincoln
Cathedral around the year 1300. The stone ruins of
Great
Zimbabwe are also
noteworthy for their architecture, and the complexity of monolithic
churches at Lalibela, Ethiopia, of which the Church of
St. George is representative.
Music and dance
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,
hip hop, and
rock.
The 1950s through the 1970s saw a conglomeration of these various
styles with the popularization of
Afrobeat
and
Highlife music. Modern music of the
continent includes the highly complex choral singing of southern
Africa and the dance rhythms of the musical genre of
soukous, dominated by the
music of the
Democratic Republic of Congo. 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
colonisation.
Sports
Fifty-three African countries have
football teams in the
Confederation of African
Football, while Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, and Ghana have
advanced to the knockout stage of recent
FIFA World Cups. South Africa will host the
2010 World Cup tournament, and
will be the first African country to do so.
Cricket is popular in some African nations.
South Africa and
Zimbabwe have
Test status, while
Kenya is the leading non-test
team in
One-Day International
cricket and has attained permanent
One-Day International status. The
three countries jointly hosted the
2003 Cricket World Cup.
Namibia is the other African
country to have played in a World Cup.
Morocco in northern Africa has also hosted the 2002 Morocco Cup, but the national team has
never qualified for a major tournament.
Religion
Africans profess a wide variety of religious beliefs and statistics
on religious affiliation are difficult to come by since they are
too sensitive a topic for governments with mixed populations.
According to the
World Book
Encyclopedia,
Islam is the largest
religion in Africa, followed by
Christianity. According to
Encyclopedia Britannica, 45% of the
population are Muslims, 40% are Christians and less than 15% are
non-religious or follow
African religions. A small
number of Africans are
Hindu,
Baha'i, or have beliefs from the
Judaic tradition. Examples of
African Jews are the
Beta Israel,
Lemba peoples
and the
Abayudaya of Eastern Uganda.
Territories and regions
The countries in this table are categorised according to the
scheme for geographic subregions used
by the United Nations, and data included are per sources in
cross-referenced articles. Where they differ, provisos are clearly
indicated.
[[File:Africa-regions.png|thumb|150px|Regions of Africa:
]]
|
|
|
Physical map of Africa
|
Satellite photo of Africa
|
Political map of Africa
|
Name of regionContinental regions as per UN
categorisations/map.
and
territory, with flag |
Area
(km²) |
Population
(2009 est) except where noted |
Density
(per km²) |
Capital |
Eastern Africa: |
6,384,904 |
316,053,651 |
49.5 |
Burundi |
27,830 |
8,988,091 |
322.9 |
Bujumbura |
Comoros |
2,170 |
752,438 |
346.7 |
Moroni |
Djibouti |
23,000 |
516,055 |
22.4 |
Djibouti |
Eritrea |
121,320 |
5,647,168 |
46.5 |
Asmara |
Ethiopia |
1,127,127 |
85,237,338 |
75.6 |
Addis Ababa |
Kenya |
582,650 |
39,002,772 |
66.0 |
Nairobi |
Madagascar |
587,040 |
20,653,556 |
35.1 |
Antananarivo |
Malawi |
118,480 |
14,268,711 |
120.4 |
Lilongwe |
Mauritius |
2,040 |
1,284,264 |
629.5 |
Port
Louis |
Mayotte (France) |
374 |
223,765 |
489.7 |
Mamoudzou |
Mozambique |
801,590 |
21,669,278 |
27.0 |
Maputo |
Réunion (France) |
2,512 |
743,981(2002) |
296.2 |
Saint-Denis |
Rwanda |
26,338 |
10,473,282 |
397.6 |
Kigali |
Seychelles |
455 |
87,476 |
192.2 |
Victoria |
Somalia |
637,657 |
9,832,017 |
15.4 |
Mogadishu |
Tanzania |
945,087 |
41,048,532 |
43.3 |
Dodoma |
Uganda |
236,040 |
32,369,558 |
137.1 |
Kampala |
Zambia |
752,614 |
11,862,740 |
15.7 |
Lusaka |
Zimbabwe |
390,580 |
11,392,629 |
29.1 |
Harare |
Middle Africa: |
6,613,253 |
121,585,754 |
18.4 |
Angola |
1,246,700 |
12,799,293 |
10.3 |
Luanda |
Cameroon |
475,440 |
18,879,301 |
39.7 |
Yaoundé |
Central African Republic |
622,984 |
4,511,488 |
7.2 |
Bangui |
Chad |
1,284,000 |
10,329,208 |
8.0 |
N'Djamena |
Congo |
342,000 |
4,012,809 |
11.7 |
Brazzaville |
Democratic Republic of the
Congo |
2,345,410 |
68,692,542 |
29.2 |
Kinshasa |
Equatorial Guinea |
28,051 |
633,441 |
22.6 |
Malabo |
Gabon |
267,667 |
1,514,993 |
5.6 |
Libreville |
São Tomé
and Príncipe |
1,001 |
212,679 |
212.4 |
São Tomé |
Northern Africa: |
8,533,021 |
211,087,622 |
24.7 |
Algeria |
2,381,740 |
34,178,188 |
14.3 |
Algiers |
EgyptEgypt is
generally considered a transcontinental country in Northern
Africa (UN region) and Western Asia; population and area figures
are for African portion only, west of the Suez Canal.
|
1,001,450 |
83,082,869 total, Asia 1.4m |
82.9 |
Cairo |
Libya |
1,759,540 |
6,310,434 |
3.6 |
Tripoli |
Morocco |
446,550 |
34,859,364 |
78.0 |
Rabat |
Sudan |
2,505,810 |
41,087,825 |
16.4 |
Khartoum |
Tunisia |
163,610 |
10,486,339 |
64.1 |
Tunis |
Western SaharaWestern
Sahara is disputed between the Sahrawi Arab Democratic
Republic, who administer a minority of the territory, and Morocco,
who occupy the remainder.
|
266,000 |
405,210 |
1.5 |
El Aaiún |
Spanish and Portuguese territories in Northern
Africa: |
Canary Islands (Spain)The Spanish Canary Islands, of which Las Palmas de Gran Canaria are Santa Cruz de Tenerife are co-capitals, are often considered part of
Northern Africa due to their relative proximity to Morocco and Western Sahara; population and area figures are for 2001.
|
7,492 |
1,694,477(2001) |
226.2 |
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria,
Santa
Cruz de Tenerife |
Ceuta (Spain)The Spanish exclave
of Ceuta is surrounded on land by Morocco in Northern
Africa; population and area figures are for 2001.
|
20 |
71,505(2001) |
3,575.2 |
— |
Madeira Islands (Portugal)The Portuguese Madeira Islands are often considered part of Northern Africa due to
their relative proximity to Morocco; population and area figures
are for 2001.
|
797 |
245,000(2001) |
307.4 |
Funchal |
Melilla (Spain)The Spanish exclave
of Melilla is surrounded on land by Morocco in Northern
Africa; population and area figures are for 2001.
|
12 |
66,411(2001) |
5,534.2 |
— |
Southern Africa: |
2,693,418 |
56,406,762 |
20.9 |
Botswana |
600,370 |
1,990,876 |
3.3 |
Gaborone |
Lesotho |
30,355 |
2,130,819 |
70.2 |
Maseru |
Namibia |
825,418 |
2,108,665 |
2.6 |
Windhoek |
South Africa |
1,219,912 |
49,052,489 |
40.2 |
Bloemfontein, Cape
Town, PretoriaBloemfontein is the judicial capital of South Africa, while
Cape
Town is its legislative seat, and Pretoria is the country's administrative seat.
|
Swaziland |
17,363 |
1,123,913 |
64.7 |
Mbabane |
Western Africa: |
6,144,013 |
296,186,492 |
48.2 |
Benin |
112,620 |
8,791,832 |
78.0 |
Porto-Novo |
Burkina Faso |
274,200 |
15,746,232 |
57.4 |
Ouagadougou |
Cape Verde |
4,033 |
429,474 |
107.3 |
Praia |
Côte d'Ivoire |
322,460 |
20,617,068 |
63.9 |
Abidjan, Yamoussoukro |
Gambia |
11,300 |
1,782,893 |
157.7 |
Banjul |
Ghana |
239,460 |
23,832,495 |
99.5 |
Accra |
Guinea |
245,857 |
10,057,975 |
40.9 |
Conakry |
Guinea-Bissau |
36,120 |
1,533,964 |
42.5 |
Bissau |
Liberia |
111,370 |
3,441,790 |
30.9 |
Monrovia |
Mali |
1,240,000 |
12,666,987 |
10.2 |
Bamako |
Mauritania |
1,030,700 |
3,129,486 |
3.0 |
Nouakchott |
Niger |
1,267,000 |
15,306,252 |
12.1 |
Niamey |
Nigeria |
923,768 |
149,229,090 |
161.5 |
Abuja |
Saint
Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (UK) |
410 |
7,637 |
14.4 |
Jamestown |
Senegal |
196,190 |
13,711,597 |
69.9 |
Dakar |
Sierra Leone |
71,740 |
6,440,053 |
89.9 |
Freetown |
Togo |
56,785 |
6,019,877 |
106.0 |
Lomé |
Africa Total |
30,368,609 |
1,001,320,281 |
33.0 |
See also
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Further reading
External links
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