Africa Is The World's Second-Largest and Second-Most Populous

Africa
is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases.
At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of
Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area.[7] With 1.3 billion people[1][2] as of 2018, it accounts
for about 16% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the
continents;[8][9] the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4.
[10]
Despite a wide range of Natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita, in part
due to geographic impediments,[11] legacies of European colonization in Africa and the Cold War,[12][13]
[14][15][16]
predatory/neo-colonialistic activities by Western nations and China, and undemocratic rule and
deleterious policies.[11] Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the
large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context.
The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Isthmus of Suez and
the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.
The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It contains 54 fully
recognised sovereign states (countries), eight territories and two de facto independent states with
limited or no recognition. Algeria is Africa's largest country by area, and Nigeria is its largest by
population. African nations cooperate through the establishment of the African Union, which is
headquartered in Addis Ababa.
Africa straddles the equator and the prime meridian making it the only continent in the world to be
situated in all four cardinal hemispheres. It is the only continent to stretch from the
northern temperate to southern temperate zones.[17] The majority of the continent and its countries
are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and 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, 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 home to much biodiversity; 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 other issues. 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.[18][19]
The history of Africa is long, complex, and has often been under-appreciated by the global historical
community.[20] Africa, particularly Eastern Africa, is widely accepted as the place of origin of humans
and the Hominidae clade (great apes). The earliest hominids and their ancestors have been dated to
around 7 million years ago, including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A.
afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster— the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human)
remains, found in Ethiopia, South Africa, and Morocco, date to circa 200,000, 259,000, and 300,000
years ago respectively, and Homo sapiens is believed to have originated in Africa around 350,000–
260,000 years ago.[21][22][23][24][25]
Early human civilizations, such as Ancient Egypt and Carthage emerged in North Africa. Following a
subsequent long and complex history of civilizations, migration and trade, Africa hosts a large
diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. The last 400 years have witnessed an increasing
European influence on the continent. Starting in the 16th century, this was driven by trade, including
the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which created large African diaspora populations in the Americas. In
the late 19th century, European countries colonized almost all of Africa, extracting resources from
the continent and exploiting local communities; most present states in Africa emerged from a
process of decolonisation in the 20th century.
Etymology
Statue representing Africa at Palazzo Ferreria, in Valletta, Malta
Afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of then-known northern Africa to the west of
the Nile river, and in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean (Ancient Libya).
[26][27]
This name seems to have originally referred to a native Libyan tribe, an ancestor of
modern Berbers; see Terence for discussion. The name had usually been connected with
the Phoenician word ʿafar meaning "dust",[28] but a 1981 hypothesis[29] has asserted that it stems from
the Berber word ifri (plural ifran) meaning "cave", in reference to cave dwellers.[30] The same
word[30] may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, a Berber tribe
originally from Yafran (also known as Ifrane) in northwestern Libya,[31] as well as the city of Ifrane in
Morocco.
Under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province it then named Africa Proconsularis,
following its defeat of the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War in 146 BC, which also included the
coastal part of modern Libya.[32] The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land (e.g.,
in Celtica from Celtae, as used by Julius Caesar). The later Muslim region of Ifriqiya, following its
conquest of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire's Exarchatus Africae, also preserved a form of
the name.
According to the Romans, Africa lies to the west of Egypt, while "Asia" was used to refer
to Anatolia and lands to the east. A definite line was drawn between the two continents by the
geographer Ptolemy (85–165 AD), indicating Alexandria along the Prime Meridian and making the
isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea the boundary between Asia and Africa. As Europeans came to
understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of "Africa" expanded with their knowledge.
Other etymological hypotheses have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa":
 The 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Ant. 1.15) asserted that it was

named for Epher ('calf'), grandson of Abraham according to Gen. 25:4, whose
descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya.
 Isidore of Seville in his 7th-century Etymologiae XIV.5.2. suggests "Africa comes from
the Latin aprica, meaning "sunny".
 Massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning "to
turn toward the opening of the Ka." The Ka is the energetic double of every person and
the "opening of the Ka" refers to a womb or birthplace. Africa would be, for the
Egyptians, "the birthplace."[33]
 Michèle Fruyt in 1976 proposed[34] linking the Latin word with africus "south wind", which
would be of Umbrian origin and mean originally "rainy wind".
 Robert R. Stieglitz of Rutgers University in 1984 proposed: "The name Africa, derived
from the Latin *Aphir-ic-a, is cognate to Hebrew Ophir ['rich']."[35]
 Ibn Khallikan and some other historians claim that the name of Africa came from
a Himyarite king called Afrikin ibn Kais ibn Saifi also called "Afrikus son of Abraham" who
subdued Ifriqiya.[36][37][38]
 Arabic afrīqā (feminine noun) and ifrīqiyā, now usually pronounced afrīqiyā (feminine)
‘Africa’, from ‘afara [‘ = ‘ain, not ’alif] ’to be dusty’ from ‘afar ‘dust, powder’ and ‘afir ‘dried,
dried up by the sun, withered’ and ‘affara ‘to dry in the sun on hot sand’ or ‘to sprinkle
with dust’.[39]
 Possibly Phoenician faraqa in the sense of ‘colony, separation’.[40]

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Africa

Statue representing Africa at Palazzo Ferreria, in Valletta, Malta

 The 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Ant. 1.15) asserted that it was

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