Africa

Africa is the second-largest and second most-populous continent in the world, after Asia. Africa is about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including nearby islands, covering 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20% of the total land area. With a billion people as of 2009 in 61 territories, it accounts for about 15% of the global human population. Africa's population has rapidly increased over the last half century, and is relatively young as a result. In some African countries half or more of the population is under 25 years of age. The African population increased from 221 million in 1950 to 1 billion in 2009. Africa, specifically central eastern Africa, is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin of humans and the great apes, as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors in the region, as well as later ones that have been dated to approximately seven million years ago with the earliest Homo sapiens (modern humans) found in Ethiopia dated to around 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and spans numerous climates; it is also the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Afri was the name of several groups who dwelt in North Africa near Carthage. Their name is usually connected with the Phoenician word for dust, but a 1981 theory argued that it stems from a Berber word for cave, in reference to cave dwellers. Under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of Africa Province, which also encompassed the coastal part of modern Libya. The Roman suffix "-ca" means "country or land". The later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiva in what is today Tunisia also preserved a form of the name.

Africa Map

The African continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal as well as the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Not including the disputed territory of Western Sahara, there are 53 countries, including Madagascar and a number of island groups associated with the continent. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa and fourth highest of the Seven Summits, is considered the tallest freestanding mountain in the world, rising 15,100 feet (4,600 meters) from base to summit. It has three volcanic cones, Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira, and is an inactive stratovolcano in north-eastern Tanzania. The Sahara ("The Greatest Desert" in Arabic) is the largest hot desert in the world. At over 9 million square kilometres (3.5 million sq mi), it covers most of Northern Africa, making it nearly as large as the United States or the continent of Europe. The desert stretches from the Red Sea in the East, including stretches of the Mediterranean coast, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean. To the south, it is bordered by the Sahel: a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna that makes up the northern region of central and western Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara has an long and obscured history that may go back as far as 3 million years. Some of the sand dunes can become 180 metres (600 ft) in height. The name is derived from the Arabic word for desert. The desert landforms of the Sahara are shaped by wind or rarely by rains, and include sand dunes and dune fields or sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains, dry valleys, and salt flats. Unusual landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania. Most of the rivers and streams in the Sahara are not year-round, the chief exception being the Nile River, which crosses the desert from its origins in central Africa to empty into the Mediterranean. Underground sources of water sometimes reach the surface, forming oases.

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