60 Fun Facts About Africa

How many fully recognised sovereign states does Africa contain?

That is more than any other continent, and the tally does not include the disputed Western Sahara or the self-declared Somaliland.

Which is Africa's largest country by area?

It only took the top spot in 2011, when Sudan lost roughly a quarter of its territory to the newly independent south.

Which is Africa's most populous country?

With well over 200 million people it is also the most populous country in the world where English is an official language.

Which is the smallest African country by area?

Its 115 islands add up to about 452 square kilometres, and it is also the continent's least populous country.

Which is the smallest country on mainland Africa?

It is a thin strip either side of its namesake river, surrounded on three sides by Senegal and never more than about 50 km wide.

Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in which country?

It is a dormant volcano and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level anywhere in the world.

Kilimanjaro's summit stands at roughly what elevation above sea level?

The summit point is Uhuru Peak, on the rim of the Kibo crater; the mountain's second peak, Mawenzi, is a jagged 5,149 m.

The White Nile and the Blue Nile meet at which capital city?

The Blue Nile, rising in the Ethiopian highlands, supplies most of the water that reaches Egypt during the flood season.

The Nile empties into which sea?

It flows north for its whole length, which is why ancient Egyptians thought of 'upstream' as south and called the far south Upper Egypt.

Which African river is the deepest in the world, with measured depths of around 220 metres?

It is also the only major river to cross the equator twice, which keeps its flow steady because one half of the basin is always in rainy season.

The Sahara is the largest hot desert but only the third-largest overall. Which two are bigger?

Deserts are defined by lack of precipitation, not heat, so the polar regions count and easily outrank the Sahara's 9.2 million square kilometres.

What is the belt of semi-arid savanna along the Sahara's southern edge called?

The name comes from the Arabic for 'shore', the idea being that the desert is a sea and the Sahel is its coastline.

The East African Rift is slowly splitting the African plate into the Nubian plate and which other?

The two halves are pulling apart at 8–9 mm a year, so in tens of millions of years the Horn of Africa could become an island.

Madagascar ranks where among the world's largest islands?

Only Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo are bigger; it split from the Indian subcontinent roughly 90 million years ago.

What is the capital of Madagascar?

The island's first permanent settlers were Austronesian seafarers from Southeast Asia, which is why Malagasy is closer to languages of Borneo than to any on the mainland.

Which headland is Africa's southern tip and the official Atlantic-Indian Ocean dividing line?

It lies about 55 km further south than the far more famous Cape of Good Hope; Portuguese sailors named it 'Cape of Needles' because compass needles there pointed true north.

Which kingdom, entirely surrounded by South Africa, is the largest of the world's three sovereign enclaves?

It is also the only independent state on Earth that lies entirely above 1,000 metres; its lowest point, 1,400 m, is the highest low point of any country.

How many years did Nelson Mandela spend in prison?

Most of that was on Robben Island, followed by Pollsmoor and Victor Verster prisons, before F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990.

The Afrikaans word 'apartheid' literally means what?

The system began after the National Party's 1948 election win and its laws were finally repealed on 17 June 1991, clearing the way for the 1994 election.

Swahili belongs to which language family?

Even so, about 40% of its vocabulary is borrowed from Arabic, including the language's own name, from a word meaning 'coasts'.

Amharic, the working language of Ethiopia's federal government, belongs to which language branch?

That makes it a relative of Arabic and Hebrew, and after Arabic it is the most widely spoken Semitic language on Earth; it is written in a script grown from Geʽez.

How many months does the Ethiopian calendar have?

Twelve months of exactly 30 days plus a short thirteenth of five or six days, and the year number runs seven to eight years behind the Gregorian one.

Which of these is one of the Big Five game animals?

The list — lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo — was drawn up by big-game hunters as the five most dangerous animals to hunt on foot, not the five most impressive to photograph.

The name Serengeti is often said to derive from a Maa word meaning what?

Around 1.7 million wildebeest circle the ecosystem each year on the great migration, and roughly 250,000 of them die along the way.

Which is Africa's largest lake by area and the world's largest tropical lake?

It gets about 80% of its water straight from rain and is shared three ways, with 49% in Tanzania, 45% in Uganda and just 6% in Kenya.

Which African lake is the world's longest freshwater lake and, after Lake Baikal, its second-deepest?

It reaches 1,470 m deep and is shared by four countries; some 98% of its 250-plus cichlid species live nowhere else.

The waterfall on the Zambia–Zimbabwe border known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya lies on which river?

Victoria Falls, as David Livingstone named it in 1855, is 1,708 m wide and 108 m high — the largest sheet of falling water in the world.

Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Lozi name for the great falls, is usually translated as what?

The spray can rise more than 400 m and be seen 50 km away; David Livingstone renamed the falls for the British queen after seeing them in 1855.

How many member states does the African Union have?

That is one more than the number of UN-recognised African states because the AU also admits the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara).

The African Union Commission, the AU's secretariat, is based in which city?

The city's name means 'new flower' in Amharic, and its diplomatic role has earned it the label 'the political capital of Africa'.

1960 is remembered as the 'Year of Africa' — how many African countries gained independence that year?

Fourteen of them had been French, and the wave began weeks after Harold Macmillan's 'Wind of Change' speech to South Africa's parliament.

Who organised the 1884–85 Berlin Conference that set the rules for Europe's colonisation of Africa?

Fourteen countries sent delegates; not one African state was invited.

Along with Ethiopia, which African country escaped European colonisation during the Scramble for Africa?

It had been settled from 1822 by free people of colour sent from the United States, and declared independence on 26 July 1847.

Monrovia, a West African capital, was renamed in 1824 in honour of which US president?

He was in office at the time and had backed the American Colonization Society's project; it is one of only two national capitals named after a US president.

At the Battle of Adwa in 1896, Emperor Menelik II defeated the forces of which European country?

More than 6,000 of the invading troops were killed, and the defeat forced the invaders to recognise Ethiopian independence by treaty.

Which country became, on 6 March 1957, the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve sovereignty?

It was the British Gold Coast, renamed after a medieval West African empire; Kwame Nkrumah led it as first prime minister and later president.

Which country became independent on 9 July 2011 after a referendum backed by 98.8% of voters?

It is the world's youngest widely recognised state, landlocked, with its capital at Juba.

Which country was renamed Zaire in October 1971 by President Mobutu Sese Seko?

Zaire was an old name for the great river; today the country, with its capital at Kinshasa, is the most populous French-speaking nation on Earth.

The Suez Canal was completed with French assistance in which year?

Egypt is one of the few transcontinental countries, reaching into Asia via the Sinai Peninsula on the canal's far side.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as the tomb of which pharaoh?

Built around 2600 BC, it stayed the tallest human-made structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years and is the only ancient wonder still largely intact.

Which country has around 255 Nubian pyramids, more than twice as many as its northern neighbour?

They were built by the rulers of Kush, with the biggest cluster at Meroë, where construction ran for over 700 years from about 270 BC.

Mansa Musa, who made a gold-laden pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, ruled which West African empire?

He handed out so much gold in Cairo that the metal's price there reportedly slumped for years, and the empire hit its greatest extent under him.

The Djinguereber Mosque, built in 1327 under Mansa Musa, stands in which city?

The city's three great madrasas taught some 25,000 students at its peak, and its family libraries still hold hundreds of thousands of manuscripts.

The stone city of Great Zimbabwe was built by ancestors of which people?

Its Great Enclosure has dry-stone walls 11 m high, laid without mortar, and the country took its name from the ruins at independence in 1980.

In 2009 UNESCO rated Nollywood the world's second-biggest film industry by output, behind which country?

The modern boom is usually traced to the 1992 straight-to-video film Living in Bondage, and the name itself was coined by a New York Times writer in 2002.

Wizkid and Tems became the first Nigerian pop artists to reach the Billboard Hot 100 with which song?

Afrobeats (with an s) is a 2000s umbrella genre from Lagos, Accra and London, distinct from the Afrobeat that Fela Kuti pioneered in the 1970s.

Which country won the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, beating the Netherlands 1–0 after extra time?

It was the first World Cup held in Africa, and the hosts became the first ever to go out in the group stage.

Which nation has won the Africa Cup of Nations a record seven times?

The tournament began in 1957 with just three teams, and it took a run of three straight titles from 2006 to 2010 to push the record to seven.

How many independent states use the West African CFA franc?

It has been pegged to the euro since 1999, and a long-delayed plan would rename it the eco and reduce France's role in the currency.

The equator passes through which of these countries?

It runs about 32 km south of Kampala; in all it crosses seven African countries, from São Tomé and Príncipe in the west to Somalia in the east.

Which city did the planned city of Abuja replace as its country's capital on 12 December 1991?

Abuja was built mostly in the 1980s at the geographic centre of the country, deliberately away from the crowded coast.

Which was the first African nation to reach the semi-finals of a men's FIFA World Cup?

Morocco made the last four at Qatar 2022, beating Spain and Portugal on the way before losing to France.

Under Roman rule, which city was the capital of the province Africa Proconsularis?

Rome made its old enemy's city the provincial capital after winning the Third Punic War in 146 BC.

A 1922 reading of 58 °C, long listed as the world's hottest temperature, was recorded in which country?

The El Azizia record stood for 90 years before the World Meteorological Organization threw it out in 2013.

Which continent, only about a third of Africa's area, has a longer coastline than Africa?

Africa's shore has few deep indentations, so its 26,000 km coastline is shorter than Europe's 32,000 km.

Ras ben Sakka, the most northerly point of mainland Africa, is in which country?

From Ras ben Sakka to Cape Agulhas in South Africa is roughly 8,000 km.

Africa has the youngest population of any continent; what was its median age in 2012?

The worldwide median age at the time was 30.4, more than a decade older.

Isidore of Seville suggested 'Africa' comes from the Latin word aprica, meaning what?

Rival theories trace the name to the Phoenician word for dust or the Berber word ifri, meaning cave.

Which kingdom did the Persian prophet Mani describe as one of the world's four great powers in the 3rd century?

Aksum ruled the northern Ethiopian-Eritrean highlands and the Red Sea port of Adulis, and its king adopted Christianity in the 4th century.

Which culture, from around 4000 BC in modern Mauritania and Mali, is West Africa's oldest known complex society?

The Ghana Empire, also called Wagadu, later rose out of the Tichitt culture on the back of camel-borne trans-Saharan trade.