Africa
Every human alive traces their origins here. Africa is where the earliest members of our genus sharpened the first tools, where Homo sapiens emerged somewhere between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago, and where the first great river civilisations — Egypt, Nubia — began writing things down. It covers roughly a fifth of the Earth's land surface, holds 54 countries, and contains climate zones ranging from the world's largest hot desert to equatorial rainforest to snow-capped volcanic peaks.
The continent resists any single framing. The Nile runs 6,852 kilometres through eleven countries. Victoria Falls drops more than a hundred metres into the Zambezi. The Pyramids of Giza have stood for nearly 4,600 years. Whatever draws you — wildlife, ruins, coastline, cities — Africa tends to return something you didn't know you were looking for.
Popular countries in Africa
How Africa came to be
The human story begins here. Fossil evidence places hominid ancestors on African soil roughly seven million years ago, and Homo sapiens evolved on the continent somewhere between 350,000 and 260,000 years before the present. By 10,000 BCE, humans had already spread from Africa to populate much of the world. The earliest permanent settlements and domesticated agriculture appeared in the Upper and Middle Nile Valley between 9,000 and 5,000 BC, and Egypt was developing into one of history's first great empires by around 4000 BCE.
The modern political map is far younger. European powers colonised the continent aggressively in the late 19th century, carving borders that cut across existing peoples and kingdoms. Decolonisation reshaped those borders through the 20th century, and as recently as 2011, South Sudan became the continent's newest independent state.
Who and what shaped it
Landmark buildings
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When to go
Africa spans every major climate zone, so 'when to go' depends entirely on where you're headed: the Sahara is one of the hottest and driest places on Earth year-round, while the equatorial west sees heavy rain most of the year, and the southern hemisphere reverses seasons so that summer runs November through January. Research your specific region — the difference between arriving in Kenya's dry season and its long rains is the difference between clear game-viewing and muddy roads.
Right now
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Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.