127 Fun Facts About Africa

Which African country's national flag features an AK-47 rifle?

Mozambique's flag crosses an AK-47 with a hoe over a book, which its constitution says stand for defence, production and study.

Which is Africa's largest country by area?

Algeria is mostly Sahara, so most Algerians live in its fertile, coastal north.

As of 2025, which is Africa's most populous country?

Nigeria has more than 200 million people, and over 500 native languages are spoken there, though English is the main language of government.

Which is the smallest African country by area?

Seychelles spreads 115 islands over about 457 km², and no one lived there until French settlers landed in 1770.

Which is the smallest country on mainland Africa?

The Gambia is a thin strip either side of its namesake river, never more than about 50 km wide.

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

Tanzania is its home, though Kenya's Amboseli park across the border offers some of its best-known views; it is the world's highest free-standing mountain.

Kilimanjaro's summit is called Uhuru Peak; what does Uhuru mean in Swahili?

Freedom is the meaning: Hans Meyer, who made the first ascent in 1889, had named the 5,895 m summit Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze, and it was renamed Uhuru Peak after independence.

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

Khartoum is where they meet, and 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?

The Mediterranean is where it ends: the Nile flows north, which is why Egypt's southern, upstream stretch is called Upper Egypt.

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

The Congo 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 which two deserts are bigger overall?

Antarctica and the Arctic count because deserts are defined by lack of precipitation, not heat, and both easily outrank the Sahara's 9.2 million km².

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.

Which famous 3.2-million-year-old skeleton found in Ethiopia was named after a Beatles song?

Lucy got her name because the Beatles' 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' was playing at camp the night of her 1974 discovery; Ethiopians call her Dinkinesh, 'you are marvellous'.

Madagascar, the fourth-largest island, is home to which native primates?

Lemurs are native only there, because Madagascar has been isolated for about 90 million years, and over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else.

What is the capital of Madagascar?

Antananarivo is the capital; 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, about 55 km further south than the Cape of Good Hope, is Africa's southernmost point?

Cape Agulhas is also where the International Hydrographic Organization begins the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

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

Lesotho is also the only independent state lying entirely above 1,000 metres; its lowest point, 1,400 m, is the highest low point of any country.

Which island prison held Nelson Mandela for 18 years?

Robben Island held him for 18 of his 27 years behind bars, and F. W. de Klerk ordered his release in February 1990.

Which party introduced apartheid in 1948?

Apartheid, Afrikaans for separateness, became policy after the National Party won the 1948 election, and its laws were repealed in 1991, three years before the first all-race election.

Swahili belongs to which group of languages?

Swahili is a Bantu language, yet its very name comes from Arabic sawahil, meaning 'coasts'.

Which Ptolemaic queen had affairs with Julius Caesar and then Mark Antony?

After Cleopatra's death in 30 BC, Octavian made her kingdom a Roman province.

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

The African buffalo joins the lion, leopard, rhino and elephant on a list big-game hunters drew up of the most dangerous animals to hunt on foot.

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

Endless plains is the popular gloss, and some 1.7 million wildebeest cross those plains each year, with roughly 250,000 dying along the way.

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

Lake Victoria's only outflow is the Nile at Jinja, which is why John Hanning Speke, who named it for his queen in 1858, believed he had found where the Nile begins.

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

Lake Tanganyika plunges to 1,470 m, and about 98% of its 250-plus cichlid species live nowhere else on Earth.

The waterfall known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya lies on which river?

The Zambezi drops 108 m over a front 1,708 m wide here, the world's largest sheet of falling water.

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

The Smoke That Thunders describes the spray, which typically rises over 400 m and can be seen from up to 50 km away.

Which disputed territory is an African Union member?

The Sahrawi Republic, which claims Western Sahara, has held full membership of the African Union and its forerunner since 1982, though the UN does not recognise it.

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

Addis Ababa means 'new flower' in Amharic, and its diplomatic role has earned it the label 'the political capital of Africa'.

Which British prime minister told South Africa's parliament during the 'Year of Africa' that a 'wind of change' was blowing?

Harold Macmillan's speech signalled Britain would not block independence; that year 17 African colonies became independent, 14 of them from France.

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

Otto von Bismarck hosted delegates from 14 countries, yet not one African state was invited.

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

Liberia, whose name comes from the Latin for 'free', was settled from 1822 by free people of colour from the United States and declared independence in 1847.

Monrovia honours James Monroe, who backed which group's plan to resettle free Black Americans in Africa?

From the 1830s some abolitionists harshly attacked the American Colonization Society, trying to discredit colonization as a slaveholders' scheme.

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

Italy lost thousands of soldiers and was forced by treaty to recognise Ethiopia's independence 'absolutely and without any reserve'.

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

Ghana, formerly the British Gold Coast, took its name from a medieval West African empire, and 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?

South Sudan 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?

DR Congo, with its capital at Kinshasa, is today the most populous French-speaking country on Earth.

Which French diplomat developed the Suez Canal?

Ferdinand de Lesseps opened the Suez Canal in 1869, but his sea-level Panama attempt, battered by malaria, yellow fever and landslides, ended in bankruptcy and a bribery scandal.

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

Khufu's pyramid, built around 2600 BC, 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?

Sudan's pyramids were built by the rulers of Kush, and the last pyramid anywhere in Africa rose at Meroë around AD 350.

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

Mali's empire hit its greatest extent under Mansa Musa, who handed out so much gold in Cairo that the metal's price there reportedly slumped for years.

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

Timbuktu's three great madrasas taught some 25,000 students at their 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?

Shona ancestors raised its Great Enclosure with walls 11 m high laid without mortar, and the country took its name from the ruins in 1980.

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

India made more films; Nollywood's home-video boom is often traced to Living in Bondage, a 1992 straight-to-video hit.

Which Wizkid song featuring Tems climbed the Billboard Hot 100 after Justin Bieber joined its remix?

Essence was the first song from Wizkid's home country to chart on the Hot 100, though he had already topped it as a guest on Drake's 'One Dance'.

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

Spain won Africa's first World Cup, where South Africa became the first host nation ever knocked out in the group stage.

As of 2026, which nation has won the Africa Cup of Nations a record seven times?

Egypt's haul includes three straight titles from 2006 to 2010; the tournament itself began in 1957 with just three teams.

Which former Portuguese colony uses the West African CFA franc?

Guinea-Bissau swapped its peso for the franc in 1997, becoming the eighth and only non-francophone member of the currency union.

The equator passes through which of these countries?

Uganda is one of seven African countries the equator crosses, passing about 32 km south of its capital, Kampala.

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

Lagos lost the title to Abuja, which was built mostly in the 1980s at the country's centre, 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, knocking out Portugal in the quarter-finals before losing to France.

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

Rome razed Carthage in 146 BC and first governed from Utica, but Julius Caesar rebuilt Carthage, which went on to become the capital.

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

Libya's El Azizia reading stood for 90 years until the World Meteorological Organization rejected it in 2012, blaming an inexperienced observer.

The flightless dodo lived only on which Indian Ocean island?

Mauritius's dodo was last reliably seen in 1662, wiped out by hungry sailors and the rats, pigs and dogs that settlers brought ashore.

Cape Angela, whose tip is mainland Africa's northernmost point, lies in which country?

Tunisia's Cape Angela lies about 15 km from the city of Bizerte, and its tip has been counted as Africa's northernmost point since 2014.

Which country's Okavango Delta floods at the height of the dry season, fed by rain that fell months earlier?

Botswana's Okavango Delta never reaches the sea; its water is lost to evaporation, plant transpiration and groundwater instead.

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

Sunny is Isidore's reading, but rival theories trace the name to a Phoenician word for dust or the Berber 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 stood alongside Rome, Persia and China in Mani's list, and its King Ezana adopted Christianity in the 4th century.

Which Ethiopian town's 11 medieval churches were carved downward out of solid rock?

Lalibela's churches were cut straight down into the rock, and tradition says King Lalibela meant them as a second Jerusalem.

Which river rises just 240 km from the Atlantic yet flows inland toward the Sahara before curving back to the sea?

The Niger's boomerang course baffled geographers for centuries. At about 4,180 km it is Africa's third-longest river, and it ends in one of the world's great deltas on the Atlantic.

Which country's 1993 independence after a 30-year war turned Ethiopia into the world's most populous landlocked nation?

Eritrea's UN-supervised referendum produced an overwhelming vote for independence, giving the new state a 1,347 km Red Sea coastline and the capital Asmara.

Which country's oil-rich Cabinda exclave is cut off from the rest of the nation by a strip of a neighbour's territory?

Angola draws close to 60% of its oil, some 900,000 barrels a day, from Cabinda, where separatist groups dispute the exclave's status.

Which absolute monarchy was renamed in 2018 to mark 50 years of independence and end confusion with Switzerland?

Eswatini means 'land of the Swazis', and King Mswati III announced the change from Swaziland on 19 April 2018. It is the last absolute monarchy in Africa.

Which three-island nation still claims Mayotte, an island that voted to stay French?

The Comoros is Africa's third-smallest country by area at 1,659 km², with its capital Moroni on Grande Comore. Mayotte rejected independence in a 1974 referendum.

Which two-island nation off Gabon, the second-smallest African state, has the equator crossing its islet of Rolas?

São Tomé and Príncipe won independence from Portugal on 12 July 1975, and it is Africa's second-least-populous sovereign state.

Which country's Pointe des Almadies, on the peninsula where Dakar stands, is the westernmost point of mainland Africa?

Senegal's Pointe des Almadies, in Dakar's Ngor district, lies about 8 degrees further west than Cabo da Roca, mainland Europe's westernmost point.

Which country's Ras Hafun, a headland on the Horn of Africa, is the easternmost point of the continental mainland?

Somalia's Ras Hafun, known locally as Raas Xaafuun, reaches 51°27' E on the Indian Ocean side of the Horn.

Which escarpment, 'Dragons' Mountains' to Dutch settlers and uKhahlamba in Zulu, rises to 3,482 m at Thabana Ntlenyana?

The Drakensberg stretches for more than 1,000 km as the eastern portion of southern Africa's Great Escarpment, where that escarpment reaches its greatest height.

Which river, South Africa's longest at 2,432 km, was named by explorer Robert Jacob Gordon for the Dutch ruling family?

The Orange drops 56 m at the Augrabies Falls on its westward course to the Atlantic, and its last 550 km form an international border.

Which fog-bound Namibian shore did the San call 'The Land God Made in Anger' and Portuguese sailors 'The Gates of Hell'?

The Skeleton Coast takes its name from the whale and seal bones that once littered the shore, joined today by the wrecks of ships lost in the dense fogs thrown up by the cold Benguela Current.

Which landmass between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba forms a land bridge between Africa and Asia?

The Sinai Peninsula is the only part of its country lying in Asia, with the Red Sea's two gulfs wrapping around its southern tip.

Which strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, the 'Gate of Grief', joins the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden?

Bab-el-Mandeb is about 26 km across and split into two channels by the island of Perim. Legend blames the name on drownings when an earthquake tore Arabia from Africa.

Which French department east of Madagascar holds Piton de la Fournaise, one of the most active volcanoes on Earth?

Réunion's highest point is the dormant Piton des Neiges at 3,070 m, and the island is governed as an overseas department and region of France.

Which archipelago, about 100 km off northwest Africa, holds the 3,715 m volcano Teide?

The Canary Islands take their name from the Latin Canariae Insulae, 'Islands of the Dogs', and the canary bird is named after the islands rather than the other way round.

Which active volcano beside the city of Buea, known locally as Mongo ma Ndemi, rises 4,040 m near the Gulf of Guinea?

Mount Cameroon, called Mongo ma Ndemi or 'Mountain of Greatness' locally, had last erupted in February 2012 as of 2026, and it rises close to the Atlantic coast.

Which landmark over Cape Town, named a New7Wonder of Nature in 2011, tops out at 1,086 m at Maclear's Beacon?

Table Mountain's plateau runs about three kilometres from side to side, and the cloud that spills over it when a south-easterly wind climbs its slopes is known as the 'tablecloth'.

Which volcano near Goma, whose fluid lava can race downhill at 100 km/h, has held the world's most voluminous lava lake?

Nyiragongo's 2002 eruption sent lava over 13 percent of Goma, and in 1977 its lava lake drained in under an hour, killing at least 50 people.

According to legend, which crop did the Ethiopian goatherd Kaldi discover after his goats grew lively from eating it?

Coffee is the crop in the tale, which is probably apocryphal: it first appeared in a treatise printed in Rome in 1671. The name Kaldi seems to be an even later addition.

Which island sultanate lost a war with Britain in 1896 that lasted about 38 minutes, the shortest on record?

Zanzibar had been a British protectorate since 1890. When the pro-British sultan died suddenly, Khalid bin Barghash took the throne without the consul's permission and barricaded himself in the palace.

Which American rock band topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983 with 'Africa', a song blessing the rains?

Toto took the song to number one in February 1983. Decades later a fan campaign persuaded Weezer to cover it, and that version reached the Hot 100 too.

Which of these deserts lies in Africa, its name said to come from a Tswana word meaning 'the great thirst'?

Kalahari red sands cover about 900,000 square kilometres of southern Africa. Much of it is semi-arid savanna rather than bare dunes, with vast areas lacking any permanent surface water.

Which pharaoh's tomb in the Valley of the Kings did Howard Carter's team discover in November 1922?

Tutankhamun's tomb was robbed twice soon after his burial, yet most of its goods survived: 5,398 objects, by far the most complete royal burial set found in the valley.

Which fictional African kingdom first appeared in a 1966 Fantastic Four comic as the home of the Black Panther?

Wakanda was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In the comics its wealth comes from a meteorite of the metal vibranium that crashed there in the distant past.

Which Nobel Peace laureate popularised 'Rainbow Nation' and chaired South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Desmond Tutu first used the image in 1989, calling a multiracial protest crowd the 'rainbow people of God'. Nelson Mandela later chose him to chair the commission.

Which antelope, known for stiff-legged leaps called pronking, gives South Africa's rugby union team its nickname?

Springbok pronk with the back bowed and a flap of white hair raised along it. The antelope is also South Africa's national animal.

Which country takes its name from its tallest mountain, the second-highest peak in Africa?

Kenya is named after Mount Kenya, whose 5,199 m summit carries glaciers.

Which of these similar-sounding places is a West African country with its capital at Lomé?

Togo began its colonial era in 1884 as the German protectorate of Togoland. Tonga and Tokelau lie in the Pacific, and Tobago in the Caribbean.

Which Green Belt Movement founder became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004?

Wangari Maathai's movement began on World Environment Day in 1977, when marchers planted seven trees in a city park to honour community leaders. It grew into a campaign for tree planting and women's rights.

Which United Nations Secretary-General, born in Kumasi, shared the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize with the UN itself?

Kofi Annan was the first holder of the post to be elected from the UN's own staff. He and the organisation were honoured 'for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world'.

Which Ethiopian emperor, born Tafari Makonnen, is accorded divine importance in the Rastafari religion?

Haile Selassie was known as Ras Tafari Makonnen before his 1930 coronation, which is how the religion that developed in Jamaica that decade got its name.

Which singer recorded 'Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)', the official song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup?

Shakira recorded it with the South African band Freshlyground. Its chorus borrows from 'Zamina mina (Zangaléwa)', a makossa song by the group Golden Sounds.

Which slab, found by a French army officer in the Nile Delta in 1799, became the key to reading hieroglyphs?

The Rosetta Stone carries one decree written three ways, in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek. That let Jean-François Champollion announce his decipherment in Paris in 1822.

Which chain of depressions about 6,500 km long runs from northern Syria through the Red Sea into East Africa?

The Great Rift Valley got its name in 1896 from the British geologist John Walter Gregory, and its eastern African branch, the Gregory Rift, is named after him in turn.

Which 'Land of a Thousand Hills' gives the last Saturday of each month to community work called umuganda?

Rwanda expects every able-bodied person aged 18 to 65 to take part from 8 am to 11 am, cleaning streets or building homes for vulnerable people.

Which AC Milan striker in 1995 became the first player from an African national team to win the Ballon d'Or?

George Weah was also named FIFA World Player of the Year in 1995. He later became the first African former professional footballer to serve as a head of state.

Which South African singer, nicknamed Mama Africa, had her most popular song with 'Pata Pata' in 1967?

Miriam Makeba called it 'one of my most insignificant songs'. She lived in exile for decades after her passport was cancelled when she tried to fly home for her mother's funeral.

Which African tree, nicknamed the 'upside-down tree', can store more than 100,000 litres of water in its trunk?

Baobab trunks swell and shrink with the rainfall, and the stored water carries the tree through harsh droughts.

Which African Great Lake holds more fish species than any other lake on Earth, including at least 700 kinds of cichlid?

Lake Malawi cichlids can have tiny ranges: some species are restricted to rocky coastlines only a few hundred metres long.

Which strait separates Africa from Europe, the two continents lying only about 14 km apart at its narrowest point?

The Strait of Gibraltar was flanked in ancient lore by the 'Pillars of Hercules', a name for the mountains, such as the Rock itself, that stand on either shore.

Which South African city grew out of an 1886 gold rush on the Witwatersrand?

Johannesburg stands on the same gold-bearing ridge that gave South Africa's currency its name: 'rand' is the Afrikaans and Dutch word for 'ridge'.

Which port city, founded by a Macedonian conqueror, was famed for its Great Library and Pharos lighthouse?

Alexandria takes its name from Alexander the Great, who chose the site himself and pictured a causeway out to the island of Pharos, later home to a lighthouse counted among the Seven Wonders.

Which of these ancient sites is in Africa, its rock-cut temples moved uphill in 1968 to escape a reservoir?

Abu Simbel's two temples now stand on the western bank of Lake Nasser, the reservoir of the Aswan Dam. Petra is in Jordan, Persepolis in Iran and Baalbek in Lebanon.

Which of these port cities is in Africa, home to a mosque whose 210 m minaret was the world's tallest in 1993?

Casablanca's Hassan II Mosque has a minaret 60 storeys high, topped by a laser whose beam points towards Mecca.

Which of these rivers flows through Africa, where Rudyard Kipling called it 'great grey-green, greasy'?

Limpopo banks are 'all set about with fever-trees' in Kipling's Just So Stories. The river's main tributary, the Olifants, has a name meaning Elephant River.

Which of these apes lives wild only in Africa, cut off from chimpanzees by a river neither species swims well?

Bonobo and chimpanzee are the two species of the genus Pan and humans' closest living relatives. The name is thought to come from a misspelled shipping crate from the town of Bolobo.

Which mining magnate founded De Beers in 1888 and left his estate to fund a famous Oxford scholarship?

Cecil Rhodes also pursued a vision of a Cape to Cairo railway through British territory, and his company named the territory of Rhodesia after him in 1895.

Which country's capital Yamoussoukro holds a basilica that Guinness World Records lists as the world's largest church?

Ivory Coast's President Félix Houphouët-Boigny chose his own birthplace as the site of a new capital in 1983. On completion the basilica surpassed the previous record holder, Saint Peter's in Rome.

Which present-day country was the Kingdom of Dahomey, whose all-female regiment is depicted in the film The Woman King?

Benin kept the name Dahomey until 1975, when it was renamed after the bight on its coast because 'Dahomey' was associated only with the Fon people of the south.

Which country did President Thomas Sankara rename in 1984, dropping the colonial name Upper Volta?

Burkina Faso joins words from two of the country's languages: 'Burkina' is Mooré for 'upright', and one translation of the full name is 'Land of the Honest Men'.

Which West African country's capital, Freetown, was founded as a settlement for freed slaves?

Sierra Leone takes its name from the 'lioness mountains' that the Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra named in 1462; the modern spelling follows a Venetian version of his Serra Leoa.

Which landlocked African country flies a blue, yellow and red tricolour almost identical to the flag of Romania?

Chad first proposed a green stripe and swapped it for blue before adopting the flag in November 1959. Its likeness to Romania's has caused international discussion since the 1990s.

Which country holds the Richat Structure, a vast dome of ringed rock in the Sahara often called the 'Eye of Africa'?

Mauritania's 'eye' is an eroded dome whose concentric rings expose the oldest rock layers at the centre. It was shaped by molten rock pushing up from below, not by a meteorite.

Which African island nation was home to Cesária Évora, the 'Barefoot Diva' who sang morna in her native Creole?

Cape Verde's best-known singer really did perform barefoot, and smoked and drank on stage during intermissions. Her music won a Grammy Award in 2004.

Which country's Lake Assal, 155 m below sea level, is the lowest point on land in Africa?

Djibouti's salt lake is the third-lowest point on Earth, after the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea.

Which bandleader is regarded as the principal innovator of Afrobeat and founded the Kalakuta Republic commune in 1970?

Fela Kuti blended West African music with American funk and jazz. His commune doubled as a recording studio, and he later declared it independent from the state.

Which South African language, rich in click consonants, was spoken by the people Nelson Mandela was born into?

Xhosa leans on clicks so heavily that, by one count, a tenth of its basic vocabulary contains one. Mandela's forename Rolihlahla is a term from the language colloquially meaning 'troublemaker'.

Which African mammal, despite looking like a giant pig, has whales and dolphins as its closest living relatives?

Hippopotamus comes from the Ancient Greek for 'river horse', but blood proteins, DNA and fossils all tie the animal to whales, a line it split from about 55 million years ago.

Which plastic horn, about 65 cm long and blaring one monotone note, became the sound of the 2010 FIFA World Cup?

Vuvuzela critics wanted it banned from stadiums, but FIFA president Sepp Blatter refused, saying 'we should not try to Europeanise an African World Cup'.

Which British primatologist began studying wild chimpanzees at Gombe Stream in 1960, mentored by Louis Leakey?

Jane Goodall showed that chimpanzees use tools, wage organised warfare and pass knowledge down the generations, traits that had been thought to set humans apart.

Which East African cattle-herding people are known for the adumu, a warriors' dance of repeated high jumps?

Maasai life traditionally centres on cattle, which supply meat, milk and even blood for food. The word adumu comes from a Maa verb meaning 'to jump up and down in a dance'.

Which Zulu king, who ruled from 1816 until his half-brothers assassinated him in 1828, favoured a short stabbing spear?

Shaka's spear was known as the iklwa. Spurned as an illegitimate son, he spent part of his childhood among his mother's people and made his name as a warrior under the chief Dingiswayo.

Which dry, dusty trade wind blows from the Sahara across West Africa between late November and mid-March?

Harmattan dust can block the sun for several days and cut visibility like a heavy fog. The wind also lowers humidity and stops rain from forming.

Which city's al-Qarawiyyin, begun as a mosque by Fatima al-Fihri, is cited by Guinness as the world's oldest university?

Fez owes the foundation to a merchant's daughter: Fatima al-Fihri inherited a large sum from her father and vowed to spend all of it on a mosque for her community, in the 850s.

Which Ethiopian runner won the 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome while running barefoot?

Abebe Bikila had bought new shoes in Rome, but they gave him blisters. Four years later in Tokyo he became the first athlete to defend an Olympic marathon title, this time wearing Pumas.

Which East African site, excavated for decades by Mary and Louis Leakey, is famous for early human fossils and tools?

Olduvai Gorge takes its name from a local word meaning 'the place of the wild sisal', after a plant that grows throughout the area.

Which South African male choral group became known worldwide after singing on Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland?

Ladysmith Black Mambazo sing in the Zulu vocal style called isicathamiya. They have won several Grammy Awards, dedicating one of them to the late Nelson Mandela.

Which antelope gives its name to the great migration that loops clockwise through the Serengeti every year?

Wildebeest herds begin the circuit around the same time each year in the southern Serengeti, and the whole journey is driven by the availability of grazing.