1. Africa is the second largest of the earth’s seven continents and makes up approximately 22% of the earth’s total land area.

2. With the inclusion of the disputed Western Sahara territory and the island nations off the continental coast, there are a total of 54 independent nations in Africa.

3. The current population of Africa is nearly one billion people. Due to rapid population growth in the continent over the last 40 years, its general population is relatively young. In many African states, more than half of the population is under the age of 25.

4. Africa is the most centrally located of all of the continents with both the prime meridian (0 degrees longitude) and the equator (0 degrees latitude) passing through it.

5. The primary region of Africa is often called sub-Saharan Africa and excludes the mostly Islamic countries of North Africa: Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. Sub-Saharan Africa includes 42 nations on mainland Africa and the six island nations.

6. While Africa makes up about 16% of the world’s population, fully one quarter of the world’s languages are spoken only in Africa.

7. Arabic (in various dialects) is the most common language spoken in Africa with about 170 million speakers, primarily residing in North Africa. In the continent as a whole, there are over 2,000 recognized languages spoken.

8. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with an estimated population of 125–145 million people. Egypt is the second most populous country with over 76 million people.

9. The most populated city in Africa is the Egyptian capital of Cairo with an estimated 17 million residents in the metropolitan area.

10. The largest country in Africa is Sudan with a total area of 967,490 square miles (2.5 million square kilometers), and the smallest country is the island nation of The Seychelles with a total area of just 175 square miles (453 square kilometers).

11. Population experts estimate that there are at least 3,000 distinct ethnic groups (tribes) in Africa. Nigeria alone has more than 370 recognized tribes within its population.

12. Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa and the second-largest freshwater lake in the world, covering an area of 26,830 square miles (69,490 square kilometers).
The Nile River is the longest river in the world with a total length of 4,132 miles

13. The Nile River, which drains into the Mediterranean Sea at the northeastern edge of Africa, is the longest river in the world with a total length of 4,132 miles (6,650 kilometers). It is formed from the juncture of two smaller rivers: the White Nile and the Blue Nile.

14. Africa contains the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, which makes up an area greater in size than the entire continental U.S.

15. Egypt is the most popular tourist destination in Africa, attracting around 10 million visitors per year.

16. While Egypt is most well known for its pyramids, the Republic of Sudan actually has 223 of its own pyramids, double the number of pyramids in Egypt. Smaller and steeper than their Egyptian counterparts, the pyramids of Sudan are not nearly as famous.

17. Four of the five fastest land animals reside in Africa: the cheetah, the wildebeest, the lion, and the Thomson’s gazelle. All of these animals can run at speeds above 50 miles per hour, with the cheetah reaching a top speed of about 70 miles per hour.

18. Africa is home to the world’s largest living land animal, the African elephant, which can weigh between 6 and 7 tons.

19. The novel Tarzan of the Apes, set in Africa and published by American author Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912, created such a compelling image of Africa and the book’s title character that a New Orleans newspaper writer only half-jokingly suggested that if Tarzan were to run for president in 1929, he would receive as many votes as incumbent president Herbert Hoover.

20. The deserts of Tunisia housed the original Star Wars movie sets for the film's planet Tatooine. More than 30 years after the premier of the first movie in the series, the sets are still very well preserved and visitors to Tunisia can even stay in Luke Skywalker’s home.

21. Africa is the poorest and most underdeveloped of all of the continents, despite its wealth of natural resources. The average poor person in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to live on just $.70 a day.

22. More than 17 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have died of AIDS, and experts estimate that at least 25 million more people in Africa are HIV-positive.

23. Approximately 90% of all cases of malaria worldwide occur in Africa, and 3,000 African children die each day from its effects.

24. Scientists believe Africa was once joined with Earth’s other continents in a super-continent called Pangaea. While Asia and South America split from Africa in the late Cretaceous epoch (roughly 80 million years ago), the African continent remained relatively stable and has not moved much throughout time. Geologists believe the large island of Madagascar split from the African continent as early as 160 millions years ago.
The African continent has not moved much from its original position in the super-continent Pangaea

25. Central eastern Africa is believed by most scientists to be the origin place of both humans and great apes. The earliest remains of the modern human species Homo sapiens have been found in Ethiopia and date to roughly 200,000 years ago.

26. The scientist Charles Darwin was the first to suggest that the ancestors of human beings may have originated in Africa. However, prejudicial attitudes toward the continent made many people in the Western world highly resistant to the idea until well into the twentieth century.

27. In 1974, the skeleton of “Lucy,” a hominid who lived approximately 3.2 million years ago and has been considered a common ancestor to the human family, was discovered in Hadar, Ethiopia. In 1979, a 165-foot trail of the earliest hominid footprints was discovered in the Kibish region of Tanzania. The two discoveries indisputably marked northeastern Africa as the birthplace of humanity.

28. Throughout human prehistory, Africa contained no major nation-states and was inhabited primarily by small groups of hunter-gatherers. Scientists believe that cattle were domesticated by hunter-gatherers in Africa as early as 6000 B.C., long before the advent of agriculture on the continent.

29. The oldest literate civilization in Africa is the Pharaonic civilization of ancient Egypt. Historical records date the rise of the Egyptian state to about 3300 B.C. and the fall from influence at 343 B.C., making it one of the world’s oldest and longest-lasting civilizations.

30. Europeans first began exploring the northern coast of Africa around 332 B.C., when Alexander the Great came into Egypt and established the city of Alexandria. The Roman Empire soon after began to integrate much of North Africa’s Mediterranean coastline into the Roman system.

I've seen beauty and yes, I can comfirmed it. So pretty, Africa.