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Africa Egypt Madagascar Congo Morocco Kenya South Africa

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**SIZE:** 11.7 million square miles

**POPULATION:** 1,000,010,000 people

**UNION:** African Union

**NUMBER OF COUNTRIES:** 54
 * MAIN LANGUAGES: ** There are about 2,000 different languages spoken in Africa. The official languages include: Arabic, Swahili, Chichewa, Amharic, Somali, Tigrinya, Kinyarwanda, Sango, Swazi, Malagasy, Seychellios, Shona, Afrikaans, Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Pedi, Sotho, Tswana, Venda and Tsonga.


 * GEOGRAPHY: ** When looking at the map above, Africa is separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea. Other bodies of water that surround the continent are the Tropic of Cancer, Atlantic Ocean and the Tropic of Capricorn. The Red Sea lies between Africa and Asia, however, the Is thm us of Suez (a canal) joins the two continents. The northern part of Africa contains the Sahara Desert, which is the largest desert in the world. The area around the equator is covered by tropical rain forests. Farther south, there are areas of grassy, flat highlands which extend into coastal plains. There are some mountains in Africa as well as volcanoes. The Great Rift Valley lies in the east and it contains several large lakes. There are also several rivers that weave throughout the continent.

LARGEST COUNTRY: Sudan


 * SMALLEST COUNTRY: ** Seychelles


 * TALLEST MOUNTAIN: ** Mount Kilimanjaro at 19,340 feet tall


 * LONGEST RIVER: ** The Nile at 4,187 square miles long


 * LARGEST LAKE/INNER SEA: ** Lake Victoria, covering over 26,000 square miles

UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS:
//Ten Things You Probably Didn't Know about Africa!//
 * 1) The Nile is the longest river in the world, flowing through Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt - if all the bends in the river were straightened out, it would flow from the Equator right up to the Scottish Highlands.
 * 2) Many children in Africa don’t get the chance to go to school. If you grew up in Mali in west Africa, for example, you’d only have a one in three chance of being able to go to primary school. Puts things in perspective rather yes?
 * 3) Four of the five fastest land animals live in Africa – the cheetah, which can run at an amazing 70 miles per hour, wildebeest, lion and gazelle.
 * 4) Lake Malawi in southern Africa is home to around 500 different types of fish. That’s more than anywhere else in the world! Gosh!
 * 5) Africa is almost an island. Its only connection to other land is the tiny Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.
 * 6) Africa is the home of the Human species, which developed there about 5 million years ago.
 * 7) More people are killed in Africa by crocodiles than by lions. We probably should include crocs on our scary stuff page .. oh well, too late!
 * 8) The banjo as we know it originated from a single-string, gourd-bodied African lute (sometimes called the "hodu") which the Griots of West Africa played to accompany storytelling. Now, bet you feel better for knowing that!
 * 9) Only three countries in the world are bigger than the Sahara Desert – Russia, Canada and China. The Kalahari Desert in southern Africa covers an area larger than France.
 * 10) The only street in the world to house two Nobel Peace prize winners is in Soweto, South Africa. Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu both have houses in Vilakazi Street.

//Resources: // Africa. (2010, December 4).Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved December 6, 2010, from [] Geography Africa. (n.d.).African Cultural Center. Retrieved December 6, 2010, from [|http://www.africanculturalcenter.org] Google Images. (n.d.). Google Images. Retrieved November 30, 2010, from [] Strange Facts About Africa. (n.d.). The gap year jobs and volunteering site. Retrieved December 6, 2010, from http://www.gapwork.com/africa-funstuff.shtml