27 STRIKING FACTS ABOUT AFRICA

1. Africa is the second largest continent and its area is about 22% of the World territory.

2. There are 54 independent states, Including the disputed territory of Western Sahara and the surrounding island nations in Africa.

3. Currently, the population of Africa is about a billion people. Over the past forty years there has been a veritable population explosion, and so the average age of the population on the continent is relatively low. In many African states half of the population has not yet reached the age of 25.

4. Africa is the most centrally with respect to the world coordinate system. It crosses the meridian and (0 degrees longitude) and the equator (0 degrees latitude).

5. Although Africa has about 16% of the world’s population, a quarter of the languages ​​spoken in the world, speak only in Africa.

6. Arabic, represented by various dialects, the most widely spoken language in Africa. 170 million people speaking the same language, live mainly in North Africa. In addition to Arabic, the continent’s say another 2,000 languages.

7. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with a population of up to 145 million people. The second most populous country is Egypt, home to more than 76 million people.

8. The most populous city in Africa is Cairo – the capital of Egypt. On the territory of this metropolis is home to about 17 million people.

9. The largest country in Africa – is Sudan. Its total area is 2, 5 million km ². The smallest country in Africa is the Seychelles, whose total area is 453 km ².

10. Experts demographers have determined that in Africa there are at least 3,000 major ethnic groups. In Nigeria alone there are more than 370 tribes.

11. Africa flows through the world’s longest river, the length of which is 6650 kilometers.

12. African Lake Victoria is the second largest freshwater lake in the world, stretched out on the territory of 69,490 square kilometers.

13. Sahara desert in Africa and is the most extensive desert in the world, which is a larger area than the entire continental United States.

14. Egypt is the most attractive tourist country in Africa mainly because of their pyramids. But few people know that the Sudan has 223 own pyramids, which is two times higher than in Egypt. They are smaller and the position than their Egyptian “rivals”, and therefore not so popular.

15. Four of the five most fleet-footed species of animals live in Africa: Cheetah, wildebeest, lion and antelope Thompson. All of them can run at speeds of over 80 km / h and the cheetah can reach speeds up to 112 km / h.

16. Africa is also home to the largest “land” of the animal. African elephant can weigh from 6 to 7 tons.

17. Africa is the poorest and most underdeveloped continent, despite its rich natural resources. The average poor person of non-Arab part of Africa lives on 70 cents a day.

18. More than 17 million Africans live south of the Sahara, have died from AIDS, and experts believe that now live there, at least 25 million people are HIV-positive.

19. About 90% of malaria cases occur in Africa, and 3,000 children are dying from it every day.

20. The central part of East Africa is considered by many scholars the place of origin of both humans and apes. The earliest remains of Homo sapiens species have been found in Ethiopia, and their approximate age is estimated to be 200,000 years old.

21. English scientist Charles Darwin was the first to propose that the ancestors of human beings came from Africa. However, the prejudice to the inhabitants of this continent forced many people in the West to oppose this idea until the 20th century.

22. In 1974, Ethiopia near Khadr was found the skeleton of “Lucy”, who lived about 3.2 million years ago, human-like creatures, which are defined as the common ancestor of humanity. In 1979, in Tanzania, the region Kibish, were found the oldest human footprints. These two discoveries have irrefutable proof that mankind originated in northeastern Africa.

23. Before the rise of Egyptian civilization, Africa was predominantly inhabited by tribes of hunter-gatherers are not prone to the development of statehood. Scientists believe that the first experience of the domestication of animals owned by the people who lived in Africa in 6000 BC, long before there were domesticated plants.

24. The most ancient civilization originated in Africa was the state of the Pharaohs in ancient Egypt. It started in about 3300 BC and ended in 343 BC.

25. Europeans first arrived on the north coast of Africa, about 332 BC, when Alexander the Great came to Egypt and founded the city of Alexandria. Soon after, the Roman Empire began to include the northern coast of Africa in its composition.

26. There are several hypotheses about the origin of the word Africa, but most etymologists are inclined to believe that the first part of the word “Africa” – is the name of the tribe, who lived in North Africa near Carthage in the 3rd century BC. A “Single” is the Latin suffix “country”, “earth.”

27. By the first century AD, Africa is divided into three parts: Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia. The name Ethiopia was true of the rest of the continent, which is located south of the Sahara desert.