Africa

Africa,with more than,922,000,000 inhabitants (14% of world's population) and,30,370,000 sq km (20,4% of world's land area) is,the third largest and the second most populous continent.

Africa, located mainly in the,southern hemisphere, includes many,island groups like Madagascar. And is joined to Asia at the north by,the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the northeast

Africa has many different,climate areas due to it's location around the equator; and is,the only continent that shows so different climates like,temperate zones,,glaciers, deserts, tropical climate and savanna.

Etimology of Africa

The origin of the toponym "Africa",comes from the name of several tribes near Carthage "Afri", wichi comes from the,Phoenician word afar (that means "dust") and the Roman suffix "ca" (country); but there are also other origins have been postulated like:,Berber word ifri (cave),, the, named, Epher (grandson of Abraham),,the Latin word aprica(sunny), the Greek word aphrike (without cold), and many others.

History of Africa

The central eastern,area of Africa, is belived to be,the origin of humans, due to the,early hominids and,ancestors discovered in this area like the, Homo erectus, H. habilis, or the Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia with an age of more than 3,000,000 year .

The first,semi-permanent settlements in Africa was born with,agricultural purposes in the Sahel region circa 5000 BC. But the, desertification caused migrations,to tropical climate areas at the West.

The scarce fertile land in sub-Saharan Africa led to intense competition and,low population density, that's why we can find so few civilizations and, kingdoms; and also a lack of,development and technology,. On,the first millennium BC ironworking and metalworking was fully established through,Africa.

The,Ancient Egypt is found at about 3300 BC, the most powerfull civilization,until 350 BC, when the,Roman Empire starts it's the conquest of,Africa's,coastline.

In the 7th century AD, the Arabian Islamic Caliphate expanded,into North Africa, and, Islam spread to Africa.

By the 9th century AD the most powerful states of Africa were Ghana, Gao, and the Kanem-Bornu Empire. And in the 11th century the Mali Empire, that was followed by, Songhai Empire that became the,major Sudanic empire until the 15th century.

Over,the 15th and 17th the,slave trade emerged and European countries opted to colonize Africa, which became even harder after the,discovery of the Americas. At the begining of the 19th century, this trend began to decline,gradually in order to inprove mining and commercial exploitation. This led to the exploration of whole Africa, and,the following colonization of it.

In the 19th century, European countries divided Africa in,many colonial,states, until the end,of World War II, when this,states gradually obtained their,independence.

Today Africa's countries are known,by their,instability, due to the fact that many of them haven't been able to sustain democratic governments.

Languages in Africa

Africa is the most polyglot continent in the world,with about 2,000 languages. But these,languages can be categorised in,four major families:, Afro-Asiatic languages (spoken mainly in the,North),,Nilo-Saharan languages (spoken in Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and others),, Niger-Congo languages (spoken in the,sub-Saharan Africa), and the,Khoisan languages (spoken in Southern Africa).

Some of this languages are: Arabic, Somali,,Chichewa, Malagasy, Swahili, Zulu, Tswana and,Afrikaans.

But after the colonialization by Europeans of many of Africa's territories nearly all the Africa's countries adopted european languages as official languages, like,English and French.

Cities in Africa

Even being the third most,populous continent and having the highest number of countries,, Africa has a low,population density in it's cities; about 350,000 cities like: Lagos, Cairo, Alexandria, Kano, Casablanca, Ibadan, Cape town, Durban or Luanda