Africa

Africa

1. Countries

   • There are 54 countries and one “non-self governing territory”, the Western Sahara, in Africa.
     • The continent’s population will more than double to 2.3 billion people by 2050.
       • The Pharaonic civilization of ancient Egypt is one of the world’s oldest and longest-lasting civilizations.
         • African continent is the world’s oldest populated area.
           • Africa is the second most populous continent with about 1.1 billion people or 16% of the world’s population. Over 50% of Africans are under the age of 25.
             • All of Africa was colonized by foreign powers during the “scramble for Africa”, except Ethiopia and Liberia.

2. Animals

   • Megafauna like giraffe, zebra, gorilla, hippopotamus, chimpanzee and wildebeest are unique to the continent and only found here.
     • Lake Malawi has more fish species than any other freshwater system on earth.
       • Africa has over 85% of the world’s elephants and over 99% of the remaining lions are on the African continent.
         • The Serengeti (Tanzania) hosts the world’s largest wildlife migration on Earth with over 750,000 zebras marching ahead of 1.2 million wildebeest as they cross this amazing landscape.

3. Language / Education

   • Arabic is spoken by 170 million people on the continent, followed in popularity by English (130 million), Swahili (100), French (115), Berber (50), Hausa (50), Portuguese (20) and Spanish (10).
     • Over 25% all languages are spoken only in Africa with over 2,000 recognised languages spoken on the continent.
       • Almost 40% of adults in Africa are illiterate – two-thirds are women. Adult literacy rates are below 50% in Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.

4. Illnesses

   • Over 25 million people are HIV-positive on the continent and over 17 million have died of the disease already.
     • Approximately 90% of all cases of malaria worldwide occur in Africa, accounting for 24% of all child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.

5. Food

   • Water scarcity impacts the lives of over 300 million Africans, of whom approximately 75% of Africans rely on groundwater as their primary source of drinking water. Global warming is aggravating the situation.
     • Productivity of about 65% of the continent’s agricultural lands has declined significantly with vast tracts of land have been degraded by erosion, poor land management practices, mining and pollution over the last 50 years.

6. Nature

   • The Sahara is the largest desert in the world and is bigger than the continental USA.
     • Africa is the world’s hottest continent with deserts and drylands covering 60% of land surface area (e.g. Kalahari, Sahara and Namib).
       • Africa is the world’s second driest continent (after Australia).
         • Nigeria is the fourth largest oil exporter in the world, and Africa’s biggest oil producer with about 2.2 million barrels produced every day. Top 10 oil producers in order of total exports: Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, Gabon, South Africa.
           • The continent has the largest reserves of precious metals with over 40% of the gold reserves, over 60% of the cobalt, and 90% of the platinum reserves.
             • Some landscapes are estimated to lose over 50 metric tonnes of soil per hectare per year due to neglect and desertification.
               • Over 30% of Africa’s pastural land and almost 20% of all forests and woodlands are classified as moderately- or heavily-degraded.
                 • Deforestation rates in Africa are twice the average for the rest of the world with more than four million hectares of primary forest disappearing every year. Countries like Kenya, malawi and Zambia have 1-5% of the primary forests remaining. Forests used to cover over 20% of Africa’s 30 million square kilometers with almost all currently being destroyed and degraded by commercial and subsistence logging, as well as land conversion to plantations, agriculture, mines, roads and settlements.
                   • The Nile River is the longest river in the world with a total length of 6,650 kilometres.