Africa Travel Guide

About Africa

Africa is the second largest continent in the world, after Asia. It covers an area of about 30.2 million sq km (11.7 million sq mi), comprising 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. There are 53 countries in Africa including the island of Madagascar and various small island nations. Africa is home to 14.8% of the world's population. Africa is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.

Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. It is estimated that well over a thousand languages are spoken in Africa. Most are of African origin, though some are of European or Asian origin. Due to colonialism, almost all of the African countries use official languages that originated outside the continent, most commonly French and English, but also grant legal recognition to a few African languages including Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa. Nonetheless English and French are often used for communication in the public sphere such as government, commerce, education and the media. In addition, Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans and Malagasy are some of the non-African languages that are used in Africa today.

Although it has a lot of natural resources, Africa is still the world's poorest and most underdeveloped continent. This is due to many reasons ranging from government mismanagement, corruption and human rights violations to diseases and natural calamities. Failed central planning and high levels of illiteracy also contributed to keeping many countries in Africa under developed. Compounding that is a lack of foreign capital, frequent tribal warfare, military conflicts and genocide. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report in 2003, 25 of the least developed countries in the world are all African.

But all is not bad news. From 1995 to 2005, Africa posted economic growth averaging 5%. Some countries experienced still higher growth rates, notably Angola, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea, all three of which had recently begun extracting their petroleum reserves or had expanded their oil extraction capacity.

Countries in Africa

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