Africa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see Africa (disambiguation).

Page semi-protected Africa Africa (orthographic projection).svg Area 30,221,532 km2 (11,668,599 sq mi)2nd Population 1.1 billion[1] (2013, 2nd) Pop. density 30.51/km2 (about 80/sq mi) Demonym African Countries 54 (and 2 disputed) (list of countries) Dependencies External (3) List[show] Internal (4) List[show] Languages List of languages Time zones UTC-1 to UTC+4 Largest cities List of metropolitan areas in Africa List of cities in Africa Nigeria Lagos Egypt Cairo Democratic Republic of the CongoRepublic of the Congo Kinshasa-Brazzaville South Africa Johannesburg Somalia Mogadishu Sudan Khartoum-Omdurman Tanzania Dar es Salaam Egypt Alexandria Ivory Coast Abidjan Morocco Casablanca Map of Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At abou t 30.2 million km (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers six percent of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4 percent of the total land are a.[2] With 1.1 billion people as of 2013, it accounts for about 15% of the world 's human population.[3] The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west . The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagoes. It has 54 fully r ecognized sovereign states ("countries"), nine territories and two de facto inde pendent states with limited or no recognition.[4] Africa's population is the youngest among all the continents; 50% of Africans ar e 19 years old or younger.[5] Algeria is Africa's largest country by area, and Nigeria is the largest by popul ation. Africa, particularly central Eastern Africa, is widely accepted as the pl ace of origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes), as evidenced by th e discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago, including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis with the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) found in Ethiopia and H. ergaster being dated to circa 200,000 years ago.[6] Africa straddles the equator and enco mpasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the nor thern temperate to southern temperate zones.[7]

Contents [hide] 1 Etymology 2 History 2.1 Prehistory 2.2 Early civilizations 2.3 9th to 18th centuries 2.4 Height of slave trade 2.5 Colonialism and the "Scramble for Africa" 2.6 Berlin Conference 2.7 Independence struggles 2.8 Post-colonial Africa 3 Geography 3.1 Climate 3.2 Fauna 3.3 Ecology 4 Biodiversity 5 Politics 5.1 The African Union 6 Economy 7 Demographics 8 Languages 9 Culture 9.1 Visual art and architecture 9.2 Music and dance 9.3 Sports 10 Religion 11 Territories and regions 12 See also 13 References 14 Further reading 15 External links Etymology Afri was a Latin name used to refer to the Carthaginians, who dwelt in North Afr ica in modern-day Tunisia. This name seems to have originally referred to a nati ve Liby