50 Fun Facts About Sub-Saharan Africa

Which West African country, home of the Nollywood film industry, has the largest population in Africa?

Nigeria is home to about one in six Africans, and its more than 250 ethnic groups speak some 500 distinct languages.

Which dormant volcano in Tanzania is Africa's highest mountain and the tallest free-standing peak on Earth?

Kilimanjaro rises 5,895 m above sea level. Of its three volcanic cones, Mawenzi and Shira are extinct, while Kibo is only dormant and could erupt again.

Which lake, shared by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, is the largest in Africa by surface area?

Lake Victoria was named for the British queen in 1858 by explorer John Hanning Speke, who believed he had found the source of the Nile.

Which island nation off Africa's southeast coast is the natural home of every species of lemur?

Madagascar split from the Indian subcontinent about 90 million years ago, so lemurs and most of its other wildlife evolved in isolation.

Which prisoner of Robben Island was freed after 27 years and became South Africa's first Black president?

Nelson Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk, the president who freed him, shortly before winning the 1994 election.

Which East African language, official in both Kenya and Tanzania, gave English the word 'safari'?

Swahili took 'safari', meaning journey, from Arabic, the source of about 40% of its vocabulary after centuries of contact with Arab traders on the coast.

Which ruler of the Mali Empire handed out so much gold on his 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca that he became legendary?

Mansa Musa gave away so much gold in Cairo that he is said to have noticeably affected its value in Egypt. His fortune came from taxing the trade in salt and gold.

The dodo, a flightless bird last seen in 1662, lived only on which Indian Ocean island nation?

Mauritius was the dodo's only home, and the bird vanished less than 70 years after Dutch sailors first recorded it in 1598.

What name was given to the racial segregation system that South Africa's government enforced from 1948 to 1994?

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning 'separateness'. A 1950 law sorted every South African into a racial group, which then decided where that person could live.

Which global sporting event did South Africa stage in 2010, the first time it was held on African soil?

The FIFA World Cup of 2010 was won by Spain and made the vuvuzela, a long horn blown by fans throughout matches, famous around the world.

Which country routed an Italian army at Adwa in 1896 and stayed independent through the Scramble for Africa?

Ethiopia won decisively at Adwa, where more than 6,000 Italian and colonial troops were killed, and became the only African country to owe its independence to a win in battle.

Which region of northern Tanzania hosts the great migration of more than a million wildebeest each year?

The Serengeti migration loops clockwise into Kenya and back, with about 1.7 million wildebeest following some 260,000 zebras in search of fresh grazing.

Which thick-trunked tree of sub-Saharan Africa's dry savannas is commonly nicknamed the upside-down tree?

Baobab trees store water in their huge trunks to survive long droughts, and one specimen was about 2,450 years old when it died in 2011.

Which southern African river plunges over the waterfall known locally as 'the smoke that thunders'?

The Zambezi rises in Zambia and crosses Mozambique to reach the Indian Ocean. David Livingstone, shown the falls in 1855, was the first European recorded to see them.

Which East African capital has a national park, home to lions and black rhinos, about 7 km from its city centre?

Nairobi National Park is fenced on three sides only, so its wildlife can still migrate across the open southern boundary to the plains beyond.

Which mountain kingdom is completely surrounded by South Africa and lies entirely above 1,000 metres?

Lesotho's lowest point, at 1,400 m, is the highest low point of any country. Only Vatican City and San Marino are likewise enclosed by a single neighbour.

Which city in Mali, a medieval centre of Islamic scholarship, became an English byword for any faraway place?

Timbuktu grew rich on the caravan trade across the desert, and in its golden age its Islamic scholars supported an important book trade.

Which cattle-herding people of Kenya and northern Tanzania are famous for the adumu, a warriors' jumping dance?

The Maasai measure a man's wealth in cattle and children, and adumu is a verb in their Maa language meaning to jump up and down in a dance.

Which country, the former Gold Coast, became sub-Saharan Africa's first colony to win independence in 1957?

Ghana took its new name at midnight on 6 March 1957, and its first leader, Kwame Nkrumah, made the country influential in the Pan-African movement.

Which West African republic, settled by freed Black Americans, named its capital Monrovia after a US president?

Liberia's flag, the Lone Star, closely resembles the Stars and Stripes, and its capital was renamed in 1824 for James Monroe, then the US president.

Which chain of geographic depressions runs about 6,500 km from Syria through the Red Sea to Mozambique?

The Great Rift Valley marks where Africa is slowly splitting: along its East African branch the continental plate is tearing in two at 8 to 9 mm a year.

Which sandy semi-desert of southern Africa has been home to San hunter-gatherers for some 20,000 years?

Kalahari is usually traced to a Tswana word meaning 'the great thirst', yet after good rains its grazing supports more animals and plants than a true desert.

Which semi-arid belt, stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, lies along the southern edge of the Sahara?

Sahel comes from the Arabic word for 'coast' or 'shore', a figurative name for the land where the great desert ends. The belt is about 5,900 km long.

Which small African country, with its capital at Kigali, is known in French as the land of a thousand hills?

Rwanda pauses on the last Saturday morning of each month for umuganda, when adults are expected to clean streets or build homes for vulnerable neighbours.

Which country took its name at independence in 1980 from a ruined stone city built by ancestors of the Shona?

Zimbabwe, formerly Southern Rhodesia, borrowed the Shona name of the largest stone structure in precolonial southern Africa. The word contains dzimba, meaning 'houses'.

Which landlocked country holds the Okavango Delta, a vast inland wetland whose water never reaches the sea?

Botswana's delta loses nearly all its water to evaporation and thirsty plants. The discovery of diamonds in 1967 transformed the country's economy.

Which West African megacity was replaced as a national capital by the inland city of Abuja in 1991?

Lagos had only about 300,000 inhabitants in 1950 and has since grown into a megacity of an estimated 17 million or more.

Which capital city, whose name means 'new flower' in Amharic, hosts the headquarters of the African Union?

Addis Ababa was founded by Menelik II in 1886 and stands 2,355 metres above sea level, which makes it one of the highest capital cities in the world.

Which capital city faces Brazzaville, another country's capital, across four kilometres of the Congo River?

Kinshasa is the largest officially French-speaking city in the world, though Lingala is the lingua franca of its streets. No bridge links it to its neighbour.

Which city at the foot of Table Mountain is South Africa's legislative capital and the seat of its parliament?

Cape Town is South Africa's oldest city and shares capital duties with Pretoria, the seat of the president, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.

Which European country's king, Leopold II, held the Congo Free State as his own private property from 1885?

Belgium took the territory off Leopold only in 1908, when its parliament reluctantly annexed it under international pressure. The king never once visited the land he owned.

Which European capital hosted the 1884–85 conference where colonial powers set the rules for partitioning Africa?

Berlin's conference was organised by Otto von Bismarck for fourteen countries, and no African countries were invited to it.

Which oil-rich country, with its capital at Luanda, is the largest Portuguese-speaking nation after Brazil?

Angola won independence in 1975 after a long anti-colonial struggle, and its exclave of Cabinda pumps so much crude that it is nicknamed the Kuwait of Africa.

Which southern African kingdom did Shaka reorganise into a formidable military power between 1816 and 1828?

Zulu regiments under Shaka attacked in a 'bull horn' formation and carried the iklwa, a short stabbing spear he is credited with introducing.

Which family of about 600 languages, spread south by ancient migrations from Cameroon, includes Xhosa and Shona?

Bantu got its name in the 1850s from the linguist Wilhelm Bleek, who took it from words such as abantu, meaning 'people', in its languages.

Which Indian Ocean archipelago, once world-famous for its cloves, united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form Tanzania?

Zanzibar lost the shortest war in recorded history: in 1896 a British bombardment ended its resistance in under 45 minutes.

Which South African city, founded in 1886 after gold was found on the Witwatersrand, is the country's largest?

Johannesburg is home to the continent's largest stock exchange and South Africa's highest court, yet it is not one of the three national capitals.

Which city, the capital of Senegal, sits on the Cap-Vert peninsula, the westernmost point of mainland Africa?

Dakar was the usual finish line of the desert rally that carries its name from 1978 to 2007, before security threats moved the race to South America and then Saudi Arabia.

Which country, with its capital at Juba, became independent in 2011 after nearly 99% of voters backed the split?

South Sudan became Africa's 54th independent country on 9 July 2011 and, five days later, the 193rd member of the United Nations.

Which West African one-pot dish of rice cooked in a tomato and chilli sauce is named after a people of Senegal?

Jollof takes its name from the Wolof people of Senegal, whose own version, thieboudienne, is recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.

Which cape, where the Atlantic and Indian oceans officially meet, is the true southernmost point of Africa?

Cape Agulhas, not the more famous Cape of Good Hope, is the continent's southern tip. Portuguese navigators named it the 'Cape of Needles', reputedly because compass needles pointed true north there.

Which Kenyan founder of the Green Belt Movement became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize?

Wangari Maathai began in 1977 by encouraging rural Kenyan women to plant tree nurseries, and in 2004 she also became the first environmentalist to win the prize.

What are West Africa's hereditary storytellers, praise singers and keepers of oral history called?

Griots usually marry within their own profession and pass the craft down the family line, memorising the histories of their people instead of writing them down.

Which ancient kingdom near the Red Sea raised giant stone obelisks and adopted Christianity in the 4th century?

Aksum struck its own coins in gold, silver and copper, and examples have been excavated as far away as southern India.

Which West African empire, with its capital at Kumasi, believed the Golden Stool housed the spirit of its nation?

The Ashanti went to war in 1900 after the British governor of the Gold Coast demanded to sit on the stool, which British forces never managed to capture.

Which West African country was Upper Volta until 1984, when Thomas Sankara renamed it the 'land of honest men'?

Burkina Faso joins words from two of its languages: 'Burkina' is Mooré for 'upright'. The colonial name had simply described the upper courses of the Volta River.

At which site in northern Tanzania did Mary and Louis Leakey unearth early human fossils and ancient stone tools?

Olduvai Gorge was home to Homo habilis about 1.9 million years ago. Its name comes from a local word for the wild sisal that grows there.

What is the dry, dusty trade wind that blows from the Sahara over West Africa between late November and mid-March?

The Harmattan is nicknamed the 'doctor wind' for the relief it brings from humid heat, yet its dust haze can block the sun for days and force flights to be cancelled.

Which biting insect of tropical Africa transmits sleeping sickness to people and the disease nagana to cattle?

Tsetse fly bites pass on trypanosome parasites, and the animal form of the disease can also strike antelopes, camels, horses, sheep, goats and pigs.

Which 1958 novel by Chinua Achebe tells of Okonkwo, an Igbo leader whose world is upended by colonial missionaries?

Things Fall Apart has been translated into over fifty languages, making it one of the most translated works of literature in the world.