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 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. 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 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, 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. In African societies, the historical process is largely a communal one, with eyewitness accounts, hearsay, reminiscences, and occasionally visions, dreams, and hallucinations, crafted into oral traditions, leading some to term them oral civilisations. Time is sometimes mythical and social, and truth generally viewed as relativist. The lack of comprehensive written records has meant that African history was largely written by outsiders, Europeans and Arabs, with contemporary historians tasked with decolonising African historiography. (Full article...)
Selected article –
Lukasa, "the long hand" (or claw), is a memory device that was created, manipulated and protected by the Bambudye, a once powerful secret society of the Luba. Lukasa are examples of Luba art. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that South African civil rights activist Thambi Naidoo was arrested along with Mahatma Gandhi and sent outside of Transvaal for refusing to register?
- ... that William Hunter Dammond became the first African-American graduate of the University of Pittsburgh in 1893, but was not recognised as such until 2000?
- ... that nursing educator Helen Turner Watson was one of the first African-American women to become a commissioned officer in the United States Navy?
- ... that a lack of screening for pregnant women with syphilis in sub-Saharan Africa is associated with increased infant mortality?
- ... that Michigan defensive end Eyabi Okie, ranked number 3 in the 2018 college football recruiting class, changed his surname from "Anoma" to recognize his mother who lives in Africa?
- ... that in the 1880s Joseph T. Wilson wrote the "most comprehensive study of African American military service" of the era?
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Selected biography –
Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 1931 – 26 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first Black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from Black theology with African theology.
Tutu was born of mixed Xhosa and Motswana heritage to a poor family in Klerksdorp, South Africa. Entering adulthood, he trained as a teacher and married Nomalizo Leah Tutu, with whom he had several children. In 1960, he was ordained as an Anglican priest and in 1962 moved to the United Kingdom to study theology at King's College London. In 1966 he returned to southern Africa, teaching at the Federal Theological Seminary and then the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. In 1972, he became the Theological Education Fund's director for Africa, a position based in London but necessitating regular tours of the African continent. Back in southern Africa in 1975, he served first as dean of St Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg and then as Bishop of Lesotho; from 1978 to 1985 he was general-secretary of the South African Council of Churches. He emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation and white minority rule. Although warning the National Party government that anger at apartheid would lead to racial violence, as an activist he stressed non-violent protest and foreign economic pressure to bring about universal suffrage. (Full article...)
Selected country –
Mauritius (French: Maurice /mɔʁis/; Mauritian Creole: Moris), officially the Republic of Mauritius (French: République de Maurice), is an island nation off the coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometers (560 mi) east of Madagascar. In addition to the island of Mauritius, the republic includes the islands of St. Brandon, Rodrigues and the Agalega Islands. Mauritius is part of the Mascarene Islands.
Mauritius attained independence in 1968 and became a republic in the Commonwealth of Nations in 1992. It is a parliamentary democracy, with the government headed by the prime minister and a council of ministers. The head of state is the President of Mauritius, who is elected for a five-year term by the National Assembly, the unicameral Mauritian parliament. The National Assembly consists of 62 members elected directly by popular vote, with between four and eight further members appointed from "best losers" election candidates to represent ethnic minorities, if underrepresented after the elections. (Read more...)
Selected city –
Accra (/əˈkrɑː/; Ga: Ga or Gaga; Twi: Nkran; Ewe: Gɛ; Dagbani: Ankara) is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, 20.4 km2 (7.9 sq mi), had a population of 284,124 inhabitants, and the larger Greater Accra Region, 3,245 km2 (1,253 sq mi), had a population of 5,455,692 inhabitants. In common usage, the name "Accra" often refers to the territory of the Accra Metropolitan District as it existed before 2008, when it covered 199.4 km2 (77.0 sq mi). This territory has since been split into 13 local government districts: 12 independent municipal districts (total area: 179.0 km2) and the reduced Accra Metropolitan District (20.4 km2), which is the only district within the capital to be granted city status. This territory of 199.4 km2 contained 1,782,150 inhabitants at the 2021 census, and serves as the capital of Ghana, while the district under the jurisdiction of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly proper (20.4 km2) is distinguished from the rest of the capital as the "City of Accra".
Formed from the merger of distinct settlements around British Fort James, Dutch Fort Crêvecoeur (Ussher Fort), and Danish Fort Christiansborg as Jamestown, Usshertown, and Christiansborg respectively, Accra served as the capital of the British Gold Coast between 1877 and 1957 and has since transitioned into a modern metropolis. The capital's architecture reflects this history, ranging from 19th-century colonial architecture to modern skyscrapers and apartment blocks. (Full article...)
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 Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, a Nigerian Senator from the People's Democratic Party, is the daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo?
- ...that the 2007 South Africa miners' strike, which impacted over 240,000 workers, was the first ever industry-wide miners' strike in the history of South Africa?
- ...that Seleh Leha, a town in Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia, was the site of a leprosarium built during the Italian occupation of East Africa and abandoned in 1941?
- ...that Sarir field, an oil field in Cyrenaica operated by the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO), is considered to be the largest in Libya, with estimated oil reserves of 12 Gbbl (1.9×109 m3)?
Related portals
Major Religions in Africa
North Africa
West Africa
Central Africa
East Africa
Southern Africa
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