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Portal:Africa

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Satellite map of Africa
Satellite map of Africa
Location of Africa on the world map
Location of Africa on the world map

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 nearly 1.4 billion people as of 2021, it accounts for about 18% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest among all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Based on 2024 projections, Africa's population will reach 3.8 billion people by 2099. Africa is the least wealthy inhabited 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 a large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context. Africa has a large quantity of natural resources and food resources, including diamonds, sugar, salt, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum, natural gas, cocoa beans, and.

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 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. In African societies the oral word is revered, and they have generally recorded their history via oral tradition, which has led anthropologists to term them oral civilisations, contrasted with literate civilisations which pride the written word. During the colonial period, oral sources were deprecated by European historians, which gave them the impression Africa had no recorded history. African historiography became organized at the academic level in the mid-20th century, and saw a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach, culminating in the General History of Africa, edited by specialists from across the continent. (Full article...)

For a topic outline, see Outline of Africa.

Mount Kenya (Meru: Kĩrĩmaara, Kikuyu: Kĩrĩnyaga, Kamba: Ki nyaa, Embu: Kĩ nyaga) is an extinct volcano in Kenya and the second-highest peak in Africa, after Kilimanjaro. The highest peaks of the mountain are Batian (5,199 metres (17,057 feet)), Nelion (5,188 m (17,021 ft)) and Point Lenana (4,985 m (16,355 ft)). Mount Kenya is located in the former Eastern and Central provinces of Kenya; its peak is now the intersection of Meru, Embu, Kirinyaga, Nyeri and Tharaka Nithi counties, about 16.5 kilometres (10.3 miles) south of the equator, around 150 km (90 mi) north-northeast of the capital Nairobi. Mount Kenya is the source of the name of the Republic of Kenya.

Mount Kenya is a volcano created approximately 3 million years after the opening of the East African Rift. Before glaciation, it was 7,000 m (23,000 ft) high. It was covered by an ice cap for thousands of years. This has resulted in very eroded slopes and numerous valleys radiating from the peak. There are currently 11 small glaciers, which are shrinking rapidly, and may disappear by 2050. The forested slopes are an important source of water for much of Kenya. (Full article...)

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Bantu Stephen Biko OMSG (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk.


Raised in a poor Xhosa family, Biko grew up in Ginsberg township in the Eastern Cape. In 1966, he began studying medicine at the University of Natal, where he joined the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Strongly opposed to the apartheid system of racial segregation and white-minority rule in South Africa, Biko was frustrated that NUSAS and other anti-apartheid groups were dominated by white liberals, rather than by the blacks who were most affected by apartheid. He believed that well-intentioned white liberals failed to comprehend the black experience and often acted in a paternalistic manner. He developed the view that to avoid white domination, black people had to organise independently, and to this end he became a leading figure in the creation of the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) in 1968. Membership was open only to "blacks", a term that Biko used in reference not just to Bantu-speaking Africans but also to Coloureds and Indians. He was careful to keep his movement independent of white liberals, but opposed anti-white hatred and had white friends. The white-minority National Party government were initially supportive, seeing SASO's creation as a victory for apartheid's ethos of racial separatism. (Full article...)

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Flag of the Kingdom of Lesotho
Flag of the Kingdom of Lesotho
Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Lesotho
Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Lesotho
Location of Lesotho

Lesotho, officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. Formerly Basutoland, it is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name Lesotho roughly translates into "the land of the people who speak Sesotho".

Lesotho covers 30,355 square kilometres (11,720 sq mi). The most notable geographic fact about Lesotho, apart from its status as an enclave, is that it is the only independent state in the world that lies entirely above 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) in elevation. Its lowest point is 1,400 meters (4,593 ft), and over 80% of the country lies above 1,800 metres (5,900 ft).

The Lesotho Government is a constitutional monarchy. The Prime Minister is the head of government and has executive authority. The king serves a largely ceremonial function; he no longer possesses any executive authority and is proscribed from actively participating in political initiatives. (Read more...)

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Port Said (/sd/, Egyptian Arabic: بورسعيد, romanized: Bōrsaʿīd, pronounced [boɾsæˈʕiːd, poɾ-]) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about 30 km (19 mi) along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital of the Port Said governorate and it forms the majority of the governorate, where its seven districts comprise seven of the governorate's eight regions. At the beginning of 2023 it had a population of 680,375 people.

The city was established in 1859 during the building of the Suez Canal. There are numerous old houses with grand balconies on all floors, giving the city a distinctive look. Port Said's twin city is Port Fuad, which lies on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal. The two cities coexist, to the extent that there is hardly any town centre in Port Fuad. The cities are connected by free ferries running all through the day, and together they form a metropolitan area with over a million residents that extends both on the African and the Asian sides of the Suez Canal. (Full article...)

In the news

24 January 2025 – Environmental issues in Somalia, Climate change in Somalia
At least 140 dolphins are found stranded on the shores of Mareero near Bosaso, Puntland, Somalia, with 60 confirmed dead and 30 returned to the sea. (Idil News) (Reuters) (Horn Observer)
22 January 2025 – Constitutional crisis in Somalia, Transport in Somalia
The Somali Airlines Operators Association, representing at least 20 airlines, suspends all flights beginning on January 22, 2025, in protest against increased government-imposed fees after disputes with the Ministry of Aviation and the Somali Civil Aviation Authority. (Shabelle Media) (Hiiraan Online)
21 January 2025 – Kivu conflict
M23 rebels seize the town of Minova in Kalehe Territory, Democratic Republic of the Congo, cutting off a major supply route to the strategic city of Goma. (Reuters)
21 January 2025 –
Four people are injured, one seriously, in a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, Israel. The Shin Bet confirm that the attacker was a 28-year-old from Morocco, and had permanent residency in the United States. (BBC) (The Times of Israel) (Xinhua)
Seventeen people are killed and 23 more injured after a collision between a bus and a truck in Ponan-Ouinlo, Ivory Coast. (AP)
Twenty Ethiopian migrants are killed when their boat capsizes off Yemen after departing from Djibouti, according to the International Organization for Migration. (Al Arabiya)

Updated: 21:05, 24 January 2025

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Major Religions in Africa


North Africa

West Africa

Central Africa

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Southern Africa

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