Ten Interesting Facts About Africa August 2, 2016 – Posted in: Travel – Tags: africa, africa facts, africa map, continent
Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Africa
Africa has been referred to as the dark continent. This is a reflection of ignorance about Africa, rather than a reflection of the continent itself. Below are some interesting facts about Africa which you probably didn’t know
- Africa is larger than the United States, China, India, Argentina, and western Europe combined. The Sahara desert alone is bigger than the continental USA.
- There are 56 sovereign countries on the continent. The newest country is South Sudan which became independent from Sudan on July 9, 2011
- There are numerous climate types on the continent, including tropical, savanna, and desert
- Between 2100 and 3000 languages are spoken on the continent, roughly a quarter of all languages spoken in the world
- The current population is around 1 billion people
- Both the equator (zero degrees latitude) and the Prime Meridian (zero degrees longitude) pass through Africa
- The most populous country in Africa is Nigeria with about 150 million people
- The southernmost point of the continent is Cape Agulhas in South Africa, not the Cape of Good Hope.
- In the 12th century, Timbuktu in Mali was home to 3 universities attended by about 25,000 students
- Africa has the highest free-standing mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro, which stands at 19,341 ft above sea level in Tanzania.