The second largest continent in the world after Asia in both geographic size and population, Africa covers one-fifth of the Earth's land surface and contains 54 countriesnote , 8 dependencies, two thousand languages and upwards of a billion people. Its primary cultural divide is between the Muslim states north of the Sahara plus the country of Sudan (known collectively as North Africa), which have more in common with the rest of the Arab world than the rest of the continent, and "Black Africa" or sub-Saharan Africa further south. There are a lot of other divisions, though, including the differences between Southern Africa and the rest of sub-Saharan Africanote and the transition zones just south of the Sahara: the primarily-Arab Sahel
and primarily-"African" Sudan (which confusingly does not include the country of Sudan, where the people are for the most part culturally Arab but look "African" to outsiders).note Africa is sometimes also merged with Asia and Europe as Afro-Eurasia.
Africa is much bigger than most people realize, largely because of the distortions formed by creating a flat map of the round Earth, which also has the unfortunate side effect of making Greenland look a lot bigger than it actually is (in reality, Greenland is over 250 km2 (96.53 sq mi) smaller than Africa's second-largest country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo). To get an idea of Africa's scale, it is comparable to the continents of Antarctica, Europe and Oceania combined. Of course, this could also be attributed to the fact that Africa quite possibly constitutes the world's biggest Hufflepuff House despite housing a billion plus people, with only Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa really being known by the general Western public...
The continent is often stereotyped as the land of poor, illiterate, sick blacks who often wage war against repressive governments led by loony presidents who have egos the length of seventh heaven and/or the land of starving children living among untamed wilderness, who warrant sympathy from rich whites to conque-er, "educate" them, yet are always hindered by Western-hating terrorists who would smuggle people in and out for blood diamonds or declare religious utopia somewhere. Sadly, those kinds of stereotypes are exactly why most of Africa becomes so unknown to the West and why so little media can accurately depict its culture and peculiarities, or how, what and why the problems are affecting the continent the way it is, and whether it is because of excessive racism and xenophobia or just plain ignorance and lack of education about the continent can be left up to interpretation.
If you are curious about African-Americans, they are the American-born descendants of Africans brought over to The United States as slaves in the Atlantic Slave Trade, particularly West and Central Africans, with most African-Americans being of Nigerian descent. They are not to be confused with Africans from the continent itself, though African-Americans did establish a country in West Africa, Liberia (which is notably one of the only two countries in the continent that weren't colonized by Europeans during the 19th century, the other being Ethiopianote ), with that country having it's own unique ethnic group, Americo-Liberians, as a result, and they also founded Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Most Caribs are also descended from West Africans brought to the islands by Europeans in the same slave trade, with The Caribbean having many aspects of West African culture in general as a result.
For Africa in fiction, see Afrofuturism, Ancient Africa, Bulungi and Darkest Africa. See also Amoral Afrikaner, Great White Hunter and Mighty Whitey. And despite what you may have heard, Africa is not a country.note
Countries
North Africa
- Egypt (Transcontinental)
Southern Africa
West Africa
- Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
Central Africa
East Africa
Unrecognized Countries
North Africa
- Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara) (de facto independent country, claimed by Morocco)
East Africa
- Somaliland (de facto independent country, claimed by Somalia)
Dependencies
North Africa
- Canary Islands (owned by Spain)
- Ceuta (de facto owned by Spain, claimed by Morocco)
- Madeira (owned by Portugal)
- Melilla (de facto owned by Spain, claimed by Morocco)
West Africa
- Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (owned by the United Kingdom)
East Africa
- French Southern and Antarctic Lands (owned by France)
- Mayotte (de facto owned by France, claimed by Comoros)
- Réunion (owned by France)
Defunct countries, empires, and other entities
Useful Notes and other articles related to Africans and African Culture
Africa in general
- African Chant
- African Terrorists
- Afrofuturism
- Ancient Africa
- Bald, Black Leader Guy
- Bible Times
- Black Boss Lady
- Bulungi
- Child Soldiers
- Darkest Africa
- Forces with Firepower
- Egyptians with Eagle Fighters (Egyptian military)
- South Africans with Surface-to-Air Missiles (South African National Defense Force)
- The Generalissimo
- Islamic Dress
- Jungle Drums
- Magical Negro
- Other Royal Families
- Portuguese Language
- President for Life
- Scary Black Man
- Voudoun
- World War II
North Africa
See Egypt, Libya and Morocco for everything solely related to those countries- All Muslims are Arab
- Arabic Language
- The Arab Spring
- Barbary Coast Wars
- Bedouin Rescue Service
- Build Like an Egyptian
- Crossing the Desert
- Deadly Dust Storm
- Desert Bandits
- Desert Warfare
- Egyptian Mythology
- Legion of Lost Souls
- Mummy
- Punic Wars
- The River War
- Scarab Power
- Thirsty Desert
- Qurac
Southern Africa
See South Africa for everything solely related to South Africa- Amoral Afrikaner
- Anglo-Zulu War
- Former Regime Personnel
- Private Military Contractors
- The Second Boer War
