Portal:Africa
Portal:Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surface area. With 1.4 billion people0 as of 2021, it accounts for about 18% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, ahead of Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. 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.
Africa straddles the equator and the prime meridian. It is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to the southern temperate zones. The majority of the continent and its countries are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and a 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, and 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 highly biodiverse; 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 pollution. 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.
The history of Africa is long, complex, and has often been under-appreciated by the global historical community. 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 233,000, 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. Africa is also considered by anthropologists to be the most genetically diverse continent as a result of being the longest inhabited. (Full article...)
Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all indigenous peoples and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement extends beyond continental Africans with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe.
Pan-Africanism can be said to have its origins in the struggles of the African people against enslavement and colonization and this struggle may be traced back to the first resistance on slave ships—rebellions and suicides—through the constant plantation and colonial uprisings and the "Back to Africa" movements of the 19th century. Based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress, it aims to "unify and uplift" people of African ancestry. (Full article...)- ... that in Africa, the criminalization of homosexuality was a colonial imposition and the decriminalization of homosexuality is resisted as a neocolonial imposition?
- ... that Jérôme Chappellaz wants to collect ice cores from Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro to be preserved in Antarctica?
- ... that although it was only formed in late 1939, the French 87th African Infantry Division inflicted 6,600 casualties upon the German forces and fought until the very end of the Battle of France?
- ... that the Enterprise, a black newspaper in Omaha, supported a separate African American department at the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition?
- ... that 555 Edgecombe Avenue, once named for a British soldier and occupied entirely by white Americans, later attracted notable African Americans like Paul Robeson and Count Basie?
- ... that in 2022, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America was a finalist for both an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and an Audie Award for Multi-voiced Performance?
Richard Joseph Goldstone (born 26 October 1938) is a South African retired judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from July 1994 to October 2003. He joined the bench as a judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa, first in the Transvaal Provincial Division from 1980 to 1989 and then in the Appellate Division from 1990 to 1994. Before that, he was a commercial lawyer in Johannesburg, where he entered legal practice in 1963 and took silk in 1976.
He is considered to be one of several liberal judges who issued key rulings that undermined apartheid from within the system by tempering the worst effects of the country's racial laws. Among other important rulings, Goldstone made the Group Areas Act – under which non-whites were banned from living in "whites only" areas – virtually unworkable by restricting evictions. As a result, prosecutions under the act virtually ceased. (Full article...)Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic), is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth largest island in the world, and is home to five percent of the world's plant and animal species, more than 80 percent of which are endemic to Madagascar. Agriculture, including fishing and forestry, is a mainstay of the economy. Major exports are coffee, vanilla, sugarcane, cloves, cocoa, rice, cassava (tapioca), beans, bananas, peanuts and livestock products.
The principal institutions of the Republic of Madagascar are a presidency, a parliament (National Assembly and Senate), a prime ministry and cabinet, and an independent judiciary. The president is elected by direct universal suffrage for a 5-year term, renewable twice. The National Assembly consists of 160 representatives elected by direct vote every 5 years. The Senate consists of 90 senators, two-thirds elected by local legislators and other Grand Electors and one-third appointed by the president, all for 6-year terms. (Read more...)
Ibadan (UK: /ɪˈbædən/, US: /ɪˈbɑːdən/; Yoruba: Ìbàdàn) is the capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano, with a total population of 2,649,000 as of 2021, and over 3 million people within its metropolitan area. It is one of the country's largest cities by geographical area. At the time of Nigeria's independence in 1960, Ibadan was the largest and most populous city in the country, and the second-most populous in Africa behind Cairo. Ibadan is ranked one of the fastest-growing cities in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the UN Human Settlements Program (2022). It is also ranked third in West Africa in the tech startups index. Ibadan joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2016.
Ibadan is located in south-western Nigeria, 128 kilometres (80 mi) inland northeast of Lagos and 530 kilometres (330 mi) southwest of Abuja, the federal capital. It is a prominent transit point between the coastal region and areas in the hinterland of the country. Ibadan had been the administrative centre of the old Western Region since the early days of British colonial rule, and parts of the city's ancient protective walls still stand to this day. The principal inhabitants of the city are the Yoruba people, as well as various communities (notably Igbo, Hausa, Edo, and Ibibio) from other parts of the country. (Full article...)- 12 February 2024 –
- Two boats collide on the Congo River near Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; with the death toll remains unclear. (AP)
- 11 February 2024 – 2023 Africa Cup of Nations
- In association football, hosts Ivory Coast win their third Africa Cup of Nations by defeating Nigeria 2–1 in the final. Sébastien Haller scores the winning goal in the 81st minute. (The Guardian)
- 10 February 2024 – Somali civil war
- Four Emirati soldiers and a Bahraini military officer are killed, while ten other people are injured, when a soldier opens fire at a military base in Mogadishu, Somalia, before being killed in the ensuing shootout. Al-Shabaab claims responsibility. (AP)
- 10 February 2024 –
- A Eurocopter EC130 helicopter crashes near Nipton, California, United States, killing all the six people on board, including Nigerian banker Herbert Wigwe. (CBS News)
- 10 February 2024 – 2023–2024 Senegalese protests
- Violent protests occur in Senegal following an announcement by President Macky Sall that presidential elections have been delayed from February 25 to December 15. (Sky News)
- 9 February 2024 –
- At least 18 people are killed during a collision between a bus and a truck on a road in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (AP)
Updated: 16:33, 14 February 2024
- ...that from 1926 to 1940, the Union Minière du Haut Katanga had a virtual monopoly of the world uranium market?
- ...that Anfillo is an endangered language of Western Ethiopia, spoken only by a few hundred adults above sixty?
- ...that Bono Manso, the capital of Bono state, was an ancient Akan trading town in present-day Ghana, which was frequented by caravans from Djenné as part of the Trans-Saharan trade?
- ...that Reverend John Chilembwe is celebrated as the first Malawian nationalist, and was a martyr for his cause?
Major Religions in Africa
North Africa
West Africa
Central Africa
East Africa
Southern Africa
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