Facts about Africa
Africa is a unique continent filled with history, culture and commerce. Come explore some of the most interesting facts about Africa and her rich traditions and civilizations. Learn about “Cultural Intelligence” in doing business with Africa.
- Africa is the second most populous continent with about 1.1 billion people or 16% of the world’s population and covering 20.5% of the earth’s total land area.
- The most common language spoken on the continent is Arabic (spoken by 170 million people), followed in popularity by English (130 million), Swahili (100), French (115), Berber (50), Hausa (50), Portuguese (20) and Spanish (10).
- Agriculture employs 65 percent of Africa’s labor force and accounts for 32 percent of gross domestic product.
- Africa is bigger than China, India, the continental U.S., and most of Europe—combined. The Sahara alone is bigger than the continental USA.
- In 2034, Africa is expected to have the world’s largest working-age population of 1.1 billion.
- Between 2000 and 2010 the continent achieved average real annual GDP growth of 5.4 percent, adding $78 billion annually to GDP (in 2015 prices). But growth slowed to 3.3 percent, or $69 billion, a year between 2010 and 2015.
- The continent’s richest country is Equatorial Guinea, with over $33,000 of GDP per capita. This puts the country comparable to Spain.
- Africa is the world’s hottest continent and the second driest after Australia. Although it is nearly four times the size of Europe, it has a shorter overall coastline because of its straighter shores.
- Because of high-fertility rates and rising numbers of women of reproductive age, the continent is expected over the next 35 years to have nearly 2 billion babies. This will double the size of the population, and its under-18 population will increase by two thirds, to almost a billion children.
- The continent has 54 independent states and one “non-self-governing territory” (Western Sahara).
- Almost half of the gold ever mined on Earth has come from a single place – Witwatersrand, South Africa.
- Africa’s urbanization rate is around 37 percent, comparable to China’s and larger than India’s. It’s expected to be the fastest urbanizing region from 2020 to 2050.
- Africa contains the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, which makes up an area greater in size than the entire continental U.S.
- Africa has 54 countries, South Sudan is the newest and Liberia is the oldest republic.
- Africa has over 25% of the world’s bird species.
- China is Africa’s top trade partner with Sino-African trade volumes now nearing $200 billion per year. Angola alone has a population of over 350,000 Chinese residents.
- Ethiopia is the only African country with its own alphabet. It also has the world’s oldest living alphabet, the Ethiopia.
- Graca Machel is the only woman to have ever been first lady of two different countries, Mozambique and South Africa.
- Liberia is a settlement of freed slaves and free blacks from the US established in 1822.
- Mexico, China, Eastern and Western Europe, India, the USA and Japan can all fit into Africa’s total land area very comfortably.
- Rwanda and Nigeria are the top two most densely populated African countries.
- The Gambia is geographically surrounded by Senegal.
- The largest country in Africa is Algeria, the smallest is the Seychelles.
- Equatorial Guinea is Africa’s only Spanish-speaking country.
- Morocco is the most visited African country.
- Nigeria has the richest Black people in Africa.
- Johannesburg, South Africa is the most visited city in Africa.
- Ethiopia has the most airports in Africa.
- Ethiopia’s economy is growing faster than China’s.
- Angola has more Portuguese speakers than Portugal.
