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 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, 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 to be the place of origin of humans and the Hominidae clade, also known as the great apes. The earliest hominids and their ancestors have been dated to around 7 million years ago, including Sahelanthropus, 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 Niger women's national football team represents Niger in international women's football. It is governed by the Nigerien Football Federation. It has played in four FIFA recognised matches, two of which were losses to Burkina Faso women's national football team in 2007. There is an under-20 women's national team who were supposed to participate in the 2002 African Women U-19 Championship but withdrew before playing a game. There are problems that impact the development of the women's game in Africa that effect Niger. (Full article...)

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Ancient Egypt Lion Nafaanra Algerian Civil War Nile Hippopotamus Makuria Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état Maraba coffee Cyclone Elita Pygmy hippopotamus Mozambican War of Independence Cameroon Chad Shangani Patrol Ruins of Gedi Kenya Airways Battle of Kabalo Antemoro people HIV/AIDS in Malawi Royal antelope Malagasy cuisine Zanzibar red colobus Mount Kenya Spotted hyena Igbo people Abir Congo Company Namib Desert Horse Gambia women's national football team Victoria Falls Conference (1975) African humid period French Sudan Nairobi National Park Hammer-headed bat Three Horses Beer Early life of Cleopatra Congo Crisis Senegal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Libyan–Egyptian War South Kasai Meermin slave mutiny Sitatunga Music in the movement against apartheid Positive Black Soul National Museum of African Art Sophiatown Adar oilfield Nigeria Airways Black-necked spitting cobra Chilembwe uprising Fatimid architecture History of Maputo Siege of Saïo GhanaSat-1 2012 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état Rwandan Civil War Zebra Ethiopian historiography Dodo Rudd Concession Marojejy National Park Giraffe Fall of Kampala Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa False potto Secretarybird Zanzibar Revolution Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état History of Timbuktu Sahara Lake Chad African Great Lakes North Africa Southern Africa West Africa East Africa Central Africa African Union History of Kenya African philosophy Ruins of Gedi East African campaign (World War I) Cushitic peoples Diani Beach The Kennedy Airlift Table Mountain Berbers Kenya in World War II Timbuktu Manuscripts Black mamba Nubian pyramids Battle of Adwa Congo River Nilotic languages Benin Bronzes Lalibela Battle of Isandlwana Africa International Film Festival Shilluk Kingdom Meroë Lukasa Talking drum Amphitheatre of El Jem Saharan rock art Tsodilo Thimlich Ohinga Great Zimbabwe Bokoni Kingdom of Kongo Gobero Fasil Ghebbi Great Rift Valley, Kenya Engaruka Languages of Africa Pan-Africanism Laetoli Rhapta Swahili culture Kilwa Sultanate Tongoni Ruins Recent African origin of modern humans Genetic history of North Africa African admixture in Europe Rozvi Empire Kweneng' Ruins Kingdom of Mapungubwe Kingdom of Benin Bigo bya Mugenyi Kerma Sabu-Jaddi Land of Punt Nobatia Alodia Akrafena African art Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt Apedemak Orisha Dahomey Amazons COVID-19 pandemic in Africa Climate change in Africa Africae Tabula Nova October 2021 Sudanese coup d'état Dougga 2023 Nigerien crisis War in Darfur 2023 Sudan conflict 2023 Gabonese coup d'état

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  Credit: David Roberts RA and Louis Hahge
  

  
  Karnak is a vast conglomeration of ruined temples, chapels, pylons and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. This was ancient Egyptian Ipet-isut ("The Most Selected of Places"), the main place of worship of the Theban Triad with Amun as its head, in the monumental city of Thebes. This tinted lithograph depicts the hypostyle hall of the Precinct of Amun-Re, as it appeared in 1838.
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  Roan antelope

  Photograph credit: Charles James Sharp

  The roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus) is a species of savanna antelope found in western, central and southern Africa. Named for its reddish-brown coat, it has a black face with white patches around the eyes and the mouth, and a short erect mane of greyish brown hair extending from the back of the neck to the rump. This roan antelope, of the subspecies H. e. koba, was photographed in Senegal; the subspecies's range extends from Senegal to Benin in western Africa.

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  Maasai people

  Photo: William Warby

  Portrait of a Maasai woman, with shaved head, stretched earlobes, and beaded adornments, typical of the Maasai culture. The Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known of African ethnic groups, due to their distinctive customs and dress and residence near the many game parks of East Africa. Their primary language Maa (ɔl Maa) is a member of the Nilo-Saharan language family that is related to Dinka and Nuer.

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  Sable antelope

  Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

  The sable antelope (Hippotragus niger) is an antelope which inhabits wooded savanna in eastern and southern Africa, from the south of Kenya to South Africa, with a separate population in Angola. The species is sexually dimorphic, with the male heavier and about one-fifth taller than the female. It has a compact and robust build, characterized by a thick neck and tough skin, and both sexes have ringed horns which arch backward. The sable antelope has four subspecies.
  
  This picture shows an adult male common sable antelope (H. n. niger) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa.

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  Baobab

  Photograph: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

  Adansonia digitata is a sub-Saharan African species of baobab tree. The genus, scientifically known as Adansonia, consists of nine species native to Madagascar, Africa, Arabia and Australia, and can reach heights of 5 to 30 m (16 to 98 ft) with trunk diameters of 7 to 11 m (23 to 36 ft).

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  Eswatini

  Photograph credit: Amada44

  Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The government is an absolute monarchy, the last of its kind in Africa, and the country has been ruled by King Mswati III since 1986. One of the country's important cultural events is Umhlanga, the reed-dance festival, held in August or September each year. This photograph shows Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini, the eldest daughter of Mswati III, at the 2006 festival.

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  Amphitheatre of El Jem

  Photograph: Poco a poco

  Panoramic view of the Amphitheatre of El Jem, an archeological site in the city of El Djem, Tunisia. The amphitheatre, one of the best-preserved Roman ruins and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, was built around 238 AD, when modern Tunisia belonged to the Roman province of Africa. It is the third-biggest amphitheatre in the world, with axes of 148 m (486 ft) and 122 m (400 ft) and a seating capacity of 35,000, unique in Africa.

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  Apartheid

  Credit: User:Guinnog

  Apartheid (meaning separateness in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and hood) was a system of racial segregation in South Africa from 1948, and was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1993, culminating in democratic elections in 1994. Apartheid was designed to form a legal framework for continued economic and political dominance by people of European descent.

  
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  Geography of Africa

  Photo: NASA

  A composite satellite image of the geography of Africa, the Earth's second-largest continent, and its adjacent islands. Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea and from much of Asia by the Red Sea, Africa is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez. For geopolitical purposes, the Sinai Peninsula – east of the Suez Canal – is often considered part of Africa, although geographically it belongs in Asia. Africa can be divided into a number of geographic zones: The Atlas Mountains in the north, the Sahara, the coastal plains, and the inner plateaus.

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  Larabanga Mosque

  Photograph: Sathyan Velumani

  The Larabanga Mosque was built in the Sudanese architectural style in the village of Larabanga, Ghana. It is the oldest mosque in the country and one of the oldest in West Africa, and has been called the "Mecca of West Africa". It has undergone restoration several times since it was founded. The World Monuments Fund has contributed substantially to its restoration, and lists it as one of the 100 most endangered sites.

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  Credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim
  

  
  Dar es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: Kinondoni to the north, Ilala in the center of the region, and Temeke to the south. The Dar es Salaam Region had a population of 2,497,940 as of the official 2002 census. Though Dar es Salaam lost its official status as capital city to Dodoma in 1974, it remains the center of the permanent central government bureaucracy and continues to serve as the capital for the Dar es Salaam Region.
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  German East African rupie

  Banknote design credit: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank; photographed by Andrew Shiva

  The rupie was the unit of currency of German East Africa between 1890 and 1916. During World War I, the colony was cut off from Germany as a result of a wartime blockade and the colonial government needed to create an emergency issue of banknotes. Paper made from linen or jute was initially used, but because of wartime shortages, the notes were later printed on commercial paper in a variety of colours, wrapping paper, and in one instance, wallpaper. This ten-rupie banknote was issued in 1916, and is now part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
  
  
  Other denominations:
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  * 1 rupie
  * 5 rupie
  * 20 rupie
  * 50 rupie
  * 200 rupie
  

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  Photo credit: Punch
  

  
  The Cape to Cairo Railway is an uncompleted project to cross Africa from south to north by rail. The plan was initiated at the end of the 19th century, largely under the vision of Cecil Rhodes, in the attempt to connect adjacent African possessions of the British Empire through a continuous line from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt. While most sections of the Cape to Cairo railway are in operation, a major part is missing between Sudan and Uganda.
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  Dallol

  Photograph credit: Alexander Savin

  Dallol is a cinder-cone volcano in the Danakil Depression, northeast of the Erta Ale Range in Ethiopia. The area lies up to 120 m (390 ft) below sea level, and has been repeatedly flooded in the past when waters from the Red Sea have inundated it. The Danakil Depression is one of the hottest places on Earth, and the evaporation of seawater after these flooding episodes produced thick deposits of salt, as seen in this landscape. The deposits at Dallol include significant quantities of the carbonate, sulfate and chloride salts of sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Hot springs discharge brine to form the blueish ponds, and small, temporary geysers produce cones of salt.

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  Credit: Ferdinand Reus
  

  
  Bareina is a Bedouin village and rural commune in the Trarza region of south-western Mauritania. As of 2000 it had a population of 14,987. This photo is a view of the village just minutes before rain started.
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  Credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim
  

  
  Mikumi National Park is a national park in Mikumi, near Morogoro, Tanzania. The park was established in 1964, currently covers an area of 3230 km² and is the fourth largest in the country. The landscape of Mikumi is often compared to that of the Serengeti. The road that crosses the park divides it into two areas with partially distinct environments. The area north-west is characterized by the alluvial plain of the river basin Mkata. The vegetation of this area consists of savannah dotted with acacia, baobab, tamarinds, and some rare palm. In this area, at the furthest from the road, there are spectacular rock formations of the mountains Rubeho and Uluguru. The southeast part of the park is less rich in wildlife, and not very accessible.
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  Photo credit: Mark Pellegrini
  

  
  The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), from the Greek ‘ιπποπόταμος (hippopotamos, hippos meaning "horse" and potamos meaning "river"), is a large, mostly plant-eating African mammal, one of only two extant and three or four extinct species in the family Hippopotamidae.
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  South-West African mark

  Banknote: Swakopmund Bookshop (courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History)

  The South West African mark was a temporary currency issued in South West Africa between 1916 and 1918 as part of the South West Africa campaign. Issued after the conquest of German South West Africa by South Africa, notes were denominated in marks and pfennig, as with the withdrawn German South West African Mark. Many institutions issued banknotes; this two-mark note was issued by the Swakopmund Bookshop. The South-West African mark was replaced in 1918 by the South African pound.

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  Pelargonium graveolens

  Photo credit: Laitche

  The Rose Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens) is a plant indigenous to various parts of southern Africa, and in particular South Africa. This specific species has great importance in the perfume industry. Its cultivars have a wide variety of smells, including rose, citrus, mint, coconut and nutmeg, as well as various fruits.

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Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

• ... that Tennessee lawyer Bolton Smith was known for his work integrating African Americans into the Boy Scouts?
• ... that Bill Pinkney was the first African American to sail around the world solo via the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn?
• ... that whilst serving as the Central African ambassador in Paris, Sylvestre Bangui held a press conference confirming that his government had massacred children and resigned?
• ... that after Benjamin Moloise's execution, the extremist group Direct Action bombed two Paris companies linked to South Africa in protest?
• ... that after failing to establish a colony for black Americans at Abeokuta, Robert Campbell founded the first newspaper in Lagos?
• ... that members of The Links, an elite organization of upper-class Black women, include Betty Shabazz, Marian Wright Edelman, and Kamala Harris?

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Francis Piol Bol Bok (born February 1979), a Dinka tribesman and citizen of South Sudan, was a slave for ten years and later became an abolitionist and author living in the United States. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

Ahmose I P. K. van der Byl Yoweri Museveni Roy Welensky Frederick Russell Burnham Alexandre Banza Barthélemy Boganda Charles Atangana Chinua Achebe List of international goals scored by Didier Drogba Abebe Bikila Isaac Folorunso Adewole Fatima Massaquoi Hakeem Olajuwon Desmond Tutu Nelson Mandela Didier Drogba Albert Camus Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti Félix Houphouët-Boigny Gamal Abdel Nasser Zersenay Tadese Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi Muammar Gaddafi Hamidou Maiga Richard Goldstone Jean-Chrysostome Weregemere Dox (poet) Judith Kanakuze Karamokho Alfa John Harrison Clark Mido (footballer) Naledi Pandor Paul Gondjout Hugh Beadle Sol Bamba Solomon (magister militum) William Henry Sheppard Évariste Kimba Alex Owumi Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo Edson Chagas Mbaye Diagne Omar Derdour Jason Sendwe Samia Yusuf Omar Miriam Makeba Steve Biko Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo Paul Kagame Ranavalona III Jomo Kenyatta Rémy Mwamba Evelyn Mase Rakoto Frah Paul Kruger Jean Bolikango Marcel Lihau Ibn Battuta Julius Nyerere Haile Selassie Wole Soyinka Anwar Sadat Wangari Maathai Christiaan Barnard Thabo Mbeki Rainilaiarivony Nnamdi Azikiwe Kofi Annan Kwame Nkrumah Cleopatra Andriantsimitoviaminiandriana Andriandrazaka Eusèbe Jaojoby Tom Mboya Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti Zara Yaqob Tippu Tip Imhotep Ptahhotep Thomas R. Odhiambo Mansa Musa Usman dan Fodio Mahmood Mamdani Okot p'Bitek Anton Wilhelm Amo Dutty Boukman Richard Leakey Dedan Kimathi Wole Soyinka Augustine of Hippo Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Lupita Nyong'o Juba II Kocc Barma Fall Cheikh Anta Diop Patrice Lumumba Léopold Sédar Senghor Amanirenas Ali Mazrui Barack Obama Sr. Bethwell Allan Ogot Ochola Ogaye Mak'Anyengo Daniel arap Moi Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Mwai Kibaki Mahmood Mamdani Reuben Olembo David Rudisha Max Theiler Albert Luthuli Aaron Klug Naguib Mahfouz Nadine Gordimer Ahmed Zewail Sydney Brenner J. M. Coetzee Denis Mukwege Taharqa Shabaka Pope Miltiades Pope Victor I Pope Gelasius I Saint Maurice Lusius Quietus

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Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique (Portuguese: República de Moçambique), is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Eswatini and South Africa to the southwest. It was explored by Vasco da Gama in 1498 and colonized by Portugal in 1505.

The north-central provinces of Zambezia and Nampula are the most populous, containing about 45% of the population. The estimated four million Makua are the dominant group in the northern part of the country; the Sena and Shona (mostly Ndau) are prominent in the Zambezi valley, and the Shangaan (Tsonga) dominate in southern Mozambique.

Portuguese is the official and most widely spoken language, spoken by 40% of the population. Most educated Mozambicans speak English, which is used in schools and business as a second or third language. (Read more...)

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Clockwise, top left: Coast of Algiers, Maqam Echahid (Martyrs' Memorial), Grande Mosquée d'Alger, Ketchaoua Mosque, Kasbah of Algiers, Algiers Central Post Office, Ministry of Finance building

Algiers (/ælˈdʒɪərz/ al-JEERZ; Arabic: الجزائر, romanized: al-Jazāʾir) is the capital and largest city of Algeria, located in the north-central part of the country. The city's population at the 2008 census was 2,988,145 and in 2020 was estimated to be around 4,500,000.

Algiers is situated on the west side of the Bay of Algiers, in the Mediterranean Sea. The modern part of the city is built on the level ground by the seashore; the old part, the ancient city of the deys, climbs the steep hill behind the modern town and is crowned by the Casbah or citadel (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), 122 metres (400 ft) above the sea. The Casbah and the two quays form a triangle. (Full article...)

List of selected cities

Lagos Kinshasa Cairo Johannesburg Nairobi Abidjan Cape Town Alexandria Casablanca Accra Dar es Salaam Giza Addis Ababa Kumasi Luanda Kano (city) Ibadan Douala Omdurman Yaoundé Bamako Kampala Mombasa Mogadishu Conakry Pretoria Lusaka Benin City Fez, Morocco Dakar Asmara Port Said Beira, Mozambique Rabat Cotonou Suez Enugu Pointe-Noire Libreville Tunis Brazzaville Bouaké Lomé Monrovia Lilongwe Kisangani Port Harcourt Freetown Nouakchott Djibouti (city) Malabo Berbera Laayoune Tripoli, Libya Constantine, Algeria Giza Cabinda (city) Niamey Windhoek Gaborone Lubumbashi Bangui Bissau Cape Coast Ouagadougou Harare Port Elizabeth N'Djamena Tindouf Benghazi Port Said Safi, Morocco Tangier Timbuktu Bujumbura Porto-Novo Juba Khartoum Francistown Kisumu Eldoret Thika Lamu town Laghouat

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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

• ... 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?

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