Portal:Africa
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 1.4 billion people0 as of 2021, it accounts for about 18% 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 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 the large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context. Africa has a large quantity of natural resources, including diamonds, sugar, salt, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum, natural gas and cocoa beans, as well as tropical fruit.
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. 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 233,000, 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. Africa is also considered by anthropologists to be the most genetically diverse continent as a result of being the longest inhabited. (Full article...)
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The Zanzibar Revolution (Swahili: Mapinduzi ya Zanzibar; Arabic: ثورة زنجبار, romanized: Thawrat Zanjibār) began on 12 January 1964 and led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar Jamshid bin Abdullah and his mainly Arab government by the island's majority Black African population.
Zanzibar was an ethnically diverse state consisting of a number of islands off the east coast of Tanganyika. It had become fully independent in 1963, with responsibility for its own defense and foreign affairs, as a result of Britain giving up its protectorate over it. In a series of parliamentary elections preceding this change, the Arab minority succeeded in retaining the hold on power it had inherited from Zanzibar's former existence as an overseas territory of Oman. (Full article...)Featured pictures –
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that when South African anti-apartheid activist Kay Moonsamy went into exile, it was fifteen years before he saw his wife and children again?
- ... that in Africa, the criminalization of homosexuality was a colonial imposition and the decriminalization of homosexuality is resisted as a neocolonial imposition?
- ... that Malaysian businessman Lim Kok Wing was depicted as "King of Africa"?
- ... that Charles Larson became one of the first Americans to teach African literature, after working in Nigeria for the Peace Corps to avoid the Vietnam draft?
- ... that in 2019 the South African army's Natal Carbineers were renamed the Ingobamakhosi Carbineers, after a Zulu regiment that had fought against them at the 1879 Battle of Isandlwana?
- ... that the growth of Christianity in 20th-century Africa has been termed the "fourth great age of Christian expansion"?
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Selected biography –
Albert John Luthuli (c. 1898 – 21 July 1967) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, traditional leader, and politician who served as the President-General of the African National Congress from 1952 until his death in 1967.
Luthuli was born to a Zulu family in 1898 at a Seventh-day Adventist mission in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In 1908 he moved to Groutville, where his parents and grandparents had lived, to attend school under the care of his uncle. After graduating from high school with a teaching degree, Luthuli became principal of a small school in Natal where he was the sole teacher. He accepted a government bursary to study for the Higher Teacher's Diploma at Adams College. After the completion of his studies in 1922, he accepted a teaching position at Adams College where he was one of the first African teachers. In 1928, he became the secretary of the Natal Native Teachers' Association, then its president in 1933. (Full article...)Selected country –
Tanzania, formally the United Republic of Tanzania (Swahili: Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda on the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the west, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique on the south, and the Indian Ocean on the east.
The country is named after Tanganyika, its mainland part, and the Zanzibar islands off its east coast. Tanganyika united with Zanzibar in 1964, forming the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, which later the same year was renamed the United Republic of Tanzania. In 1996 government offices were transferred from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma, making Dodoma the country's political capital. Dar es Salaam remains the principal commercial city.
Tanzania is mountainous in the north-east, where Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, is situated. To the north and west are Lake Victoria (Africa's largest lake) and Lake Tanganyika (Africa's deepest lake). Central Tanzania comprises a large plateau, with plains and arable land. The eastern shore is hot and humid, with the island of Zanzibar just offshore. (Read more...)
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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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More did you know –
- ... that the British Museum's oldest African-American object is the Akan Drum (pictured) that was used to "dance the slaves"?
- ... that L.C. Lecesne rose to prominence as an activist against slavery after the British Government compensated him for his illegal exile from Jamaica?
- ... that despite receiving a budget allocation in 2003, the public sports stadium in Gibeon, Namibia, hadn't been repaired as of December 2007?
- ... that Thomas Edward Wilkinson was made Bishop of Zululand after his predecessor in South Africa, John Colenso, was excommunicated?
Related portals
Major Religions in Africa
North Africa
West Africa
Central Africa
East Africa
Southern Africa
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