www.Primo.com: Did You Know About Africa.

Africa is the continent's second-largest and second most-populated world after Asia. With an area of 30,224,050 km ² including adjacent islands, Africa covers 20.3% of the total land surface. With 800 million people in 54 countries, the continent is home to one seventh of the world population.

History.

The word comes from the Latin Africa, Africa terra - "land of Afri" (plural of "Afer") - to indicate the northern part of the continent, is now a part of Tunisia, the seat of the Roman province of Africa. Afer possible origin of the word Phoenician, 'afar means dust, or from the Afridi tribe, who inhabited the northern part of the continent near Carthage; aphrike or from the Greek meaning without cold, or from the Latin word meaning bright Aprica.
Africa is home to the earliest humans, the humans of the continent and then spread to other continents. Africa is a place where the line of evolution from ape to different protohuman seven million years ago. Africa is the only continent that is inhabited by human ancestors until about two million years ago when Homo erectus evolved out of Africa to Europe and Asia. More than 1.5 million years later, the population of the three continents that follow different evolution so that they become different species. Neanderthals were in Europe becomes, the remains of Homo erectus in Asia, but in Africa evolved into Homo sapiens.

Geography.

Africa is the largest of the three continents in the Southern Hemisphere and the second largest after Asia from all continents. The extent of approximately 30,244,050 km2 (11,677,240 mil2) including the surrounding islands, covering 20.3% of the total land area of the earth and inhabited more than 800 million people, or about one-seventh of the human population on earth.
Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, Africa fused with Asia at the eastern end of the sea through the Suez Canal which has a width of 130 km. The Sinai Peninsula is owned by Egyptians often considered geopolitically as part of Africa. From the northernmost tip, Cape Spartel in Morocco, in 37 ° 21 'north latitude, to the southernmost tip, Cape Agulhas in South Africa, 34 ° 51'15 "South latitude, stretching a distance of about 8000 km, from the westernmost tip of Cape Verde, 17 ° 33'22 "West longitude, to the most eastern tip, Ras Hafun in Somalia, 51 ° 27'52" East longitude, located about 7,400 km. The length of coastline is 26,000 km (for comparison, Europe, which has an area of 9.7 million km ² has a coastline of 32,000 km.

The Nile.

The Nile is a river that flows in the north in the northeast of Africa , Its length is about 6,650 km ( 4,132 miles) .
The Nile is the " international river " because the water source is divided by eleven countries namely , Tanzania , Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi , Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.
In particular , the Nile River provides the primary water resources and thus become the artery of life for downstream countries such as Egypt and Sudan .

The Nile has two major rivers , the White Nile and the Blue Nile . White Nile is longer and rise in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa , with the most distant source still undetermined but located in Rwanda or Burundi . The river flows north through Tanzania , Lake Victoria , Uganda and South Sudan .
Blue Nile is the source of most of the water and fertile soil . It starts at Lake Tana in Ethiopia at and flows into Sudan from the southeast . The two rivers meet near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum .
The Nile ends in a large delta that empties into the Mediterranean Sea .

Sahara.

Sahara is the largest desert in the world, covering a wide swath of land across northern Africa. The desert stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. Sahara covers ¼ of the entire continent. Most of the Saharan heat, dry, and empty. Since ancient times, people use camels to carry goods across the vast desert.

Thousands of Ethiopian seen'm looking for a pile of salt on the sidelines of the rocks, in the middle of the Sahara Desert sun, Africa. Search activity has been going on since the salt is hundreds of years ago as a family economic income.

Kilimanjaro.

Africa's highest mountains are found in the eastern row of towering. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, located in east central Africa. Kilimanjaro is the active volcano which has a height of 19,341 feet (5,895 meters).
How much does it cost to climb Kilimanjaro? Around $1000 USD.

Countries.

Most African countries are former colonies, except South Africa, Ethiopia and Liberia. Democratic Republic of Congo is a former Belgian colony. Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Djibouti, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana ex-colonial Britain. Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Benin, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo and the former French colony of Madagascar. Togo, Cameroon, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Namibia former German colony. Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, a former Italian colony. Guinea Bissau, Angola, Malawi, and Mozambique is a former Portuguese colony. As well as the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. Third ie 15 of 47 landlocked countries.

AIDS.

Two-thirds (26 million out of 40 million) of the world's people with HIV / AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. One in five people in Botswana and Swaziland are infected with AIDS. Botswana is a country with an average rate of AIDS infection in the world's highest at 22%. Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland had an average infection rate of 10%. The percentage of people aged 15-49 years worldwide HIV positive is 1.1%, in sub-Saharan Africa 8%. The number of people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV every day 8,500 souls while the number who die from AIDS every day 6,300 souls. The number of children under 18 who have been orphaned by AIDS worldwide (from 2003) 15 million, in sub-Saharan Africa 12.3 million. The number of South Africans who are HIV positive 5.3 million, more than any other country in the world. The percentage of pregnant women in South Africa are HIV positive in 2004 27.9%.

Economy.

Africa is the poorest continent inhabited by residents: Human Development Report 2003 of the United Nations (with 75 countries) to register the position 151 (Gambia) to 175 (Sierra Leone) with African countries.

Religion.

African people embrace different religions, with Christianity and Islam as the majority religion in the African continent. Approximately 50% of Africans are Christians and another 35% Muslims. Approximately 15% of African indigenous religion of Africa. A small number also embraced Judaism, such as the Beta Israel and Lemba tribe.
Religion has a major role in the life of Egypt. Unofficially, echoed the call to prayer five times a day which determines the various activities. Cairo is also known by a variety of minarets and church. According to the Egyptian constitution, all laws must be in accordance with Islamic law. State recognizes the Hanafi school through the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Imam trained in school for priests and expertise at the University of Al-Azhar, which has a committee to give fatwas to the issue of religion.
90% of the Egyptian population are adherents of Islam, the majority Sunni and some also embraced local Sufi teachings. Approximately 10% of Egyptians embraced Christianity; 95% denominated in Coptic (Coptic Orthodox, Coptic Catholic and Coptic Protestant.

Language.

Map showing the deployment of the African language groups and some major African languages. Afro-Asiatic languages spread throughout the Sahel, and Southwest Asia. Niger-Congo languages are separated to show the size of the subgroups of Bantu languages.
According to most estimates, Africa has more than a thousand languages. There are four major language groups originating from this continent.
Afro-Asiatic language group is a group of languages which consists of about 240 languages and 285 million speakers widespread throughout North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia.
Nil-Saharan language group consists of more than a hundred languages spoken by 30 million people. Nil-Saharan languages spoken mostly in Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and northern Tanzania.
Niger-Congo language group includes most of sub-Saharan Africa and is probably the largest language group in the world in terms of number of languages. A large number of them are auxiliary languages which are used in most of sub-Saharan Africa.
Khoisan language group consists of about 50 languages and is spoken in southern Africa by approximately 120,000 people. Many of the Khoisan languages are endangered language. Khoi and San tribes are considered as indigenous people in the region.
Except for a few countries in East Africa, almost all countries in Africa have adopted official languages that originated outside the continent and spread through colonialism or human displacement. For example, in some countries, English and French languages used for communication in the public sphere such as government, commerce, education and the mass media. Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans and Malagasy are other examples of languages that are originally non-African are used by millions of Africans today, both in the public and private sphere.

Politics.

Africa before colonization.

Before the colonization of Africa is a poor country because of the dry climate conditions making it impossible to grow crops there. Still there are many inland tribes backward there.

Africa during the colonial era.

In countries that have a lot of European population, for example in Rhodesia and South Africa, a system of second-class citizens made to give Europeans more political power.

Demographics.

African people can be divided according to their place of residence, north or south of the Sahara; these groups are called North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans.
Thank you for reading this article. Written and posted by Bambang Sunarno. sunarnobambang86@gmail.com
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name: Bambang Sunarno.
http://primadonablog.blogspot.com/2014/03/did-you-know-about-africa.html
DatePublished: March 3, 2014 at 11:00