Africa, Second largest continent on Earth. It is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean and is divided almost equally by the Equator. Area: 11,642,094 sq mi (30,152,882 sq km).
Africa is composed largely of a rigid platform of ancient rocks that underlies vast plateau regions in the interior. Its average elevation is about 2,200 ft (670 m), but elevations range from 19,340 ft (5,895 m) at Mount Kilimanjaro to 515 ft (157 m) below sea level at Lake Assal. The Sahara, the world’s largest contiguous desert, occupies more than one-fourth of the total land area. Less than one-tenth of Africa’s land area is arable, while nearly one-fourth is forested or wooded. The continent’s hydrology is dominated by the Nile River in the north, the Niger River in the west, and the Congo River in central Africa.
The peoples of Africa probably speak more languages than those of any other continent. Arabic is predominant from Egypt to Mauritania and in Sudan. Northern Africans speak a family of languages known as Afro-Asiatic. The vast majority of sub-Saharan peoples speak Bantu languages of the Niger-Congo family, while smaller numbers in central Africa speak Nilo-Saharan languages and in southern Africa Khoisan languages. Peoples of European descent are found mostly in the south; Dutch (Boer) migrations began in the 17th century, and the English first settled in what is now Kenya and Zimbabwe in the 19th century.
Africa as a whole is a developing region. Agriculture is the key sector of the economy in most countries. Diamond and gold mining are especially important in the south, while petroleum and natural gas are produced particularly in the west.
Most African governments are controlled by the military or a single party. Many legal systems combine laws introduced by European powers during the colonial era with traditional law, though North African countries derive many laws from Islam. African leaders have sought to develop a Pan-African approach to the continent’s political and military affairs through the Organization of African Unity and its successor, the African Union.
Africa is widely recognized as the birthplace of humankind. Archaeological evidence indicates that the continent has been inhabited by humans and their hominid forebears for some 4,000,000 years or more. Anatomically modern humans are believed to have appeared about 100,000 years ago in the eastern region of sub-Saharan Africa. Somewhat later those early humans spread into northern Africa and the Middle East and, ultimately, to the rest of the world.
Africa’s first great historical kingdom, Egypt, arose along the Nile c. 3000 bce and flourished for nearly 3,000 years. The Phoenicians established a colony at Carthage and controlled the western Mediterranean for nearly 600 years. While northern Africa was dominated by the Romans for several centuries, the first known empire in western Africa was Ghana (5th–11th century ce). Muslim empires included those of Mali (c. 1250–1400) and Songhai (c. 1400–1591). In eastern and central Africa the emphasis was on trade with Arabia, and several powerful city-states, including Mogadishu and Mombasa, were established. The Portuguese explored the western coast in the 15th century.
Before the late 19th century, Europe showed little interest in colonizing Africa, but by 1884 European countries had begun a scramble to partition the continent, and by 1920 much of it was under colonial rule. Anticolonial sentiment developed gradually, becoming widespread after 1950, and one by one the colonies became independent, the last in 1990. Political instability, refugee problems, famine, and AIDS are the chief problems facing the continent in the early 21st century.
