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Africa.
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Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. At c. 30,244,050 km2 (11,677,240 mi2) including the islands, it covers 20.3% of the total land area on Earth, and with over 800 million human inhabitants it accounts for around one seventh of Earth's human population.
The ancient Romans used the name Africa terra — "land of the Afri" (plural, or "Afer" singular) — for the northern part of the continent, corresponding to modern-day Tunisia. The origin of Afer may be the Phoenician `afar, dust; the Afridi tribe, who dwelt in Northern Africa around the area of Carthage; Greek aphrike, without cold; or Latin aprica, sunny.
Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide")
1 Map
2 Geography
3 History
4 Politics
5 Demographics
6 Culture
7 Religion
8 Countries
9 List of countries/dependencies by population density
10 See also
11 External link
Map
See also: World map.
Geography
Main Article: Geography of Africa
History
Main Article: History of Africa
Africa is home to the oldest inhabited territory on earth, and it is believed the human race originated from what is now this continent.
For most of humanity's history, Africa (and all other continents) had no nation states, and was instead inhabited by many small, loosely associated tribal groups, kingdoms, and families; while Egypt was probably the first nation state ever formed, much of sub-Saharan Africa remained effectively nation-state-less until quite recently. In the 14th century European explorers arrived in Africa. By bargaining with some local tribal leaders, Europeans were able to capture millions of Africans, and export them for labour around the world in what became known as the global slave trade. In the early 19th century the European imperial powers staged a massive "scramble for Africa" and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial states. This occupation continued until the conclusion of the Second World War, after which all colonial states were gradually granted formal independence. Today, Africa is home to over 50 independent countries, many of which still have borders drawn during the era of European colonialism.
Map showing European claimants to the African continent
Politics
Africa is composed of 56 nations, the vast majority of which are republics that operate under some form of the presidential system of rule.
Since independence, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. Until recently, few nations in Africa were able to sustain democratic governments, instead cycling through a series of brutal coups and military dictatorships.
Many of Africa's post-colonial political leaders were very poorly educated or igornant on matters of governance, which led to great instability. Others were corrupt and dictatorial, outlawing opposition immediately upon assuming office, and supressing the European-made constitutions and parliaments.
As well, many used the positions of power to re-ignite old tribal conflicts which had been suppressed under colonial rule. In many countries, the military was percieved as being the only group that could effectively maintain order and ruled most nations in Africa during the 70's and early 80's.
During the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s Africa had over 70 coups and 13 presidential assassinations.
Cold War conflicts between The United States and the Soviet Union also played a role in the 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 recieved Soviet military aide, while many in Central and Souther Africa were supported by America or France.
Border and territorial disputes have also been common, with the European-imposed borders of many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts.
Failed government policies and political corruption have also resulted in many widespread famines, and significant portions of Africa remain with distribution systems unable to distribute enough food or water for the population to survive. The spread of dangerous diseases is also rampant, especially the deadly HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Despite numerous hardships, there have been some signs the continent has hope for the future. Democratic governments seem to be spreading, though are not yet the majority. As well, many nations have at least nominally recognized basic human rights for all citizens, and have created reasonably independent judiciaries.
As well, under pressure from international financial institutions like the IMF, many African governments have been able to turn their economies around, so that they have started to show positive growth according to conventional economic measurements after decades of negative or zero growth. It remains to be seen if such developments will be able to survive long term, however.
There are clear signs of increased networking among African organisations and states. In the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire), rather than rich, non-African countries intervening, about half-a-dozen neighbouring African countries got involved. The death toll, estimated by some to 3.5 million over five years, is very high. This might play a role similar to that of World War II for Europe, after which the people in the neighbouring countries decide to integrate their societies in such a way that war between them becomes as unthinkable as a war between, say, France and Germany would be today.
Political associations such as the African Union are also offering hope for greater co-operation and peace between the continent's many countries.
Demographics
The species homo sapiens sapiens is now believed to have originated in Africa and migrated into the outlying continents about 80,000 years ago. After this African diaspora, humans developed into what are considered the different human races, although it is also contended that not enough isolated evolution in different geographical areas was possible for the species to become polytypic.
During the years following the migration, some cultural changes, changes of group identities, and some genetic changes, such as skin color, clearly happened. Racism can sometimes arise because non-Africans sometimes view themselves as being culturally and genetically different from Africans. It is currently debated as to whether people can be meaningfully classified by a few superficial physical characteristics such as skin colour. Some argue that the very classification itself can lead to humans segregating themselves along racial lines, a phenomenon known in folklore psychology as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For example, it is a fact that the human population of sub-saharan Africa (south of the Sahara desert) in its vast majority has black skin. Although it is often possible to differentiate non-Africans from Africans based on skin color, it is also argued that even though groups of people in other parts of the world would each be classified as African if an attempt were made to find genetic sub-groupings of our species, their paler skin colour misleadingly suggests that they are not African.
Since colonisation, the nations of Zimbabwe and South Africa maintain small, but significant groups, returned to Africa after a few ten thousand years absence, identifying themselves as white and Asian. Similiarly, most people in Madagascar (including the first people to arrive on the long-uninhabited island) are descended from people who came from Indonesia. See race and racism for a more detailed discussion of these issues.
Culture
Most northern countries, from Egypt to Morocco, have people who largely associate themselves as part of the Arabic culture. To the south of the Sahara, there are many distinct cultural areas, sometimes quite small; a large part of those can be associated to the linguistic group Bantu.
List of African writers
African art
Religion
Africa is home to a wide variety of different religious groups. Christianity and Islam have a significant presence in many countries, while others retain regionally unique tribal beliefs and customs.
Countries
Eastern Africa
Central Africa
Northern Africa (Some countries are included as part of the Middle East in some definitions of that term)
Southern Africa
Western Africa
List of countries/dependencies by population density
in inhabitants/km2.
Saint Helena, being closest to Africa, has been included.
Egypt as a whole has been included, even though some of Egypt is located in Asia.
Unlike the figures in the country articles, the figures in this table are based on areas including inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers) and may therefore be lower here.
country
pop. dens.
area
population
(/km²)
(km²)
(2002-07-01 est.)
Mauritius
588
2,040
1,200,206
Mayotte (Fr.)
457
374
170,879
Réunion (Fr.)
296
2,512
743,981
Comoros
283
2,170
614,382
Rwanda
281
26,338
7,398,074
Burundi
229
27,830
6,373,002
Seychelles
176
455
80,098
São Tomé and Príncipe
170
1,001
170,372
Nigeria
141
923,768
129,934,911
Gambia
129
11,300
1,455,842
Uganda
105
236,040
24,699,073
Cape Verde
101
4,033
408,760
Togo
93
56,785
5,285,501
Malawi
90
118,480
10,701,824
Ghana
85
239,460
20,244,154
Sierra Leone
78
71,740
5,614,743
Lesotho
73
30,355
2,207,954
Egypt
71
1,001,450
70,712,345
Morocco (excluding Western Sahara)
70
446,550
31,167,783
Swaziland
65
17,363
1,123,605
Benin
60
112,620
6,787,625
Ethiopia
60
1,127,127
67,673,031
Tunisia
60
163,610
9815,644
Senegal
54
196,190
10,589,571
Kenya
53
582,650
31,138,735
Côte d'Ivoire
52
322,460
16,804,784
Burkina Faso
46
274,200
12,603,185
Tanzania
39
945,087
37,187,939
Guinea-Bissau
37
36,120
1,345,479
Eritrea
37
121,320
4,465,651
South Africa
36
1,219,912
43,647,658
Cameroon
34
475,440
16,184,748
Guinea
32
245,857
7,775,065
Liberia
30
111,370
3,288,198
Zimbabwe
29
390,580
11,376,676
Madagascar
28
587,040
16,473,477
Mozambique
24
801,590
19,607,519
Democratic Republic of the Congo
24
2,345,410
55,225,478
Djibouti
21
23,000
472,810
Equatorial Guinea
18
28,051
498,144
Saint Helena (UK)
18
410
7,317
Sudan
15
2,505,810
37,090,298
Algeria
14
2,381,740
32,277,942
Zambia
13
752,614
9,959,037
Somalia
12
637,657
7,753,310
Mali
9.1
1,240,000
11,340,480
Republic of the Congo
8.7
342,000
2,958,448
Angola
8.5
1,246,700
10,593,171
Niger
8.4
1,267,000
10,639,744
Chad
7.0
1,284,000
8,997,237
Central African Republic
5.8
622,984
3,642,739
Gabon
4.6
267,667
1,233,353
Libya
3.1
1,759,540
5,368,585
Mauritania
2.7
1,030,700
2,828,858
Botswana
2.7
600,370
1,591,232
Namibia
2.2
825,418
1,820,916
Western Sahara (Morocco)
1.0
266,000
256,177
TOTAL
841,627,750
See also
External link
Continents of the World
Asia | Africa | North America | South America | Antarctica | Europe | Australia
(The Pacific Islands, also called Oceania, are not part of any continent)
The above article is adapted from from Wikipedia All Wikipedia article text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
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