Africa (Steel and Bridle)
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent after Asia. It is located on all four hemispheres, with the majority of the population located on the Northern Hemisphere. At about 30.3 million km2 including adjacent islands, it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's landmass and 6% of its total surface area. With a population of 1.7 billion people, approximately 17.6% of the world's population, Africa is characterized as having the youngest population among all the continents, with a median age of 20.1 in 2020.
The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. It includes Madagascar and various archipelagos, such as Macaronesia, the Seychelles, and the Mascarenes; this does not include Malta and Sicily, which are geologically African. The continent straddles the equator and the prime meridian. It is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to the southern temperate zones. The majority of the continent's landmass, countries, and population are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and a number of countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Most of the continent lies in the tropics, except for a large part of Mazigia and Egypt to the north; and Namibenland, South Africa, Natalia, Sofala, and Madagascar, below the Tropic of Capricorn.
The population of Africa is very highly diverse, exhibiting a wide array of ethnicities, languages, cultures, and religions, with more than 3,000 distinct ethnic groups and their respective languages and dozens of religious traditions, including a diverse denominational breakdown of Abrahamic and Iranian religions. The continent is home to some of the oldest human civilizations, including the ancient Egyptians and the Kingdom of Kush, and has experienced waves of invasions, migrations and colonization that have left a very noticeable mark. The languages of the continent fall into several major families, including Southern Romance, Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Khoisan, although Germanic, Iranic, and Hindustani speakers are also present due to historical migrations and colonial influences. Despite this, several languages serve as lingua francas across various regions, such as Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, French, Persian, Coptic, Mandinka, and Hausa.
Highly religious, Africa has dozens of native religious traditions. While Christianity is the predominant religion, it can be subdivided by denomination. Northwest Africa is dominated by Donatism, while Northeast Africa is dominated by Coptic Christianity. Donatism is a native African denomination, establishing itself in the modern-day Kingdom of Africa around the 4th century; and Coptic Christianity predominates in the three largest African countries - Ethiopia, Egypt, and Nubia. Other traditions, such as Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy also hold significant sway in various parts of the country, with Iberoafrica and Gabon-Équateur being primarily Catholic, British and Dutch-influenced territories as well as Natalia being mainly Protestant, and Byzantine Azania being Orthodox. Arianism is also present in the continent, with native communities in Allania, Swebia, and Vandalia, as well as in Namibenland since the 20th century. Iranic religions such as Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism are present mainly in North Africa and Somalia, while Judaism is almost exclusively practiced in New Israel. In many parts of the continent, indigenous traditions also hold some significance.
Africa is highly biodiverse; it is the continent with the largest number of megafauna species, as well as the least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. Various large rivers traverse the African continent, such as the Nile across Egypt, the Tamanrasset in Northwestern Africa, the Niger in West Africa, the Zaire in Central Africa, and the Zambezi in Southern Africa. Other bodies of water, such as the imposing Chad Sea, the Phasania Sea, the Qattara Lake, the Tinduf Lake, and the Great Lakes of the Eastern Rift Valley, including Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Malawi, contribute significantly to Africa's unique ecological systems and biodiversity. Africa's diverse climates range from the arid deserts of the Tenere, Mer, and Kalahari to the dense, humid rainforests of the Zaire Basin. Mountain ranges include those of the Atlas Mountains in the northwest, the Ethiopian Highlands in the northeast, the Drakensberg range in the southeast, and the Mountains of the Moon range in the center, including Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest point in Africa.
The history of Africa is long, complex, and varied. Eastern Africa is widely accepted as the place of origin of huamns and the Hominidae clade, also known as the great apes. The earliest hominids and their ancestors have been dated to around 7 million years ago, including Sahelanthropus, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster, the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) remains, found in Ethiopia, South Africa, and Mauretania, date to circa 233,000, 259,000, and 300,000 years ago, respectively, and Homo sapiens is believed to have originated in Africa around 350,000–260,000 years ago. Africa is also considered by anthropologists to be the most genetically diverse continent as a result of being the longest inhabited.
Civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, Kerma, Punt, Kush, and the Tichitt emerged in North, East, and West Africa during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, while the Bantu expansion from 4000 BC until 1000 AD was substantial in laying the foundations for societies and states in Central, East, and Southern Africa. A complex historical patchwork of civilisations, kingdoms, and empires followed, with most African societies recording their state apparatus, literature, and history via oral tradition. Within Africa slavery was historically widespread and internal slave markets were used to fuel various exporting slave trades, creating various diasporas, including in the Americas. During the Age of Sail, many European and Middle Eastern powers established colonial territories across the continent, mainly limited to the coast, while native African states were either vassalized, turned into protectorates, or became large trading partners to European factories or settlements.
In the late 17th century, the European exploration and permanent settlement of Africa increased significantly, facilitated by the discovery of the antimalarial treatments of quinine. The availability of the treatment has been referred to as the main reason Africa ceased to be known as the "White man's grave", as it significantly reduced the mortality rates of European colonists. Unsophisticated methods of transportation and an overall lack of navigable rivers, however, maintained Europeans focused on the coast in West Africa. In central and southern Africa, however, Europeans penetrated deeper into the hinterlands due to the more suitable weather and low population density. Europeans settled heavily around these areas, with many becoming even plurality European by the early 19th century, such as South Africa and Rhodesland. Accelerated by the Industrial Revolution, the settlement of these territories led to the proliferation of infrastructure projects, agricultural endeavors, and mining operations, dramatically altering the physical and socioeconomic landscape of these regions.
The 19th century also saw the creation of multiple Freedmen States, an all-encompassing name that covers the countries of Liberia, Kamerun, Gabon-Équateur, and Barocelia. These countries were all established as special territories for the settlement of descendants of slaves in the Americas. The Back to Africa movement was initially met with resistance and skepticism, but the success of the British colony of Liberia, which received thousands of freedmen, enticed many American countries and other private initiatives to replicate the model. Free gens de couleur from Louisana founded the colony of Équateur, Welserlander freedmen established themselves in Kamerun, and the Portuguese Empire decided to create the Territory of Barocelia in order to avoid conflict between the rival colonies of Angola and Sofala, settling the large freedman population of Brazil within the new territory. However, a majority of African states remained independent.
The 20th century was shaped by the Great War early in the century, mainly affecting the areas adjacent to Europe, as well as the colonization of the interior, mostly done by Gabon-Équateur and Nubia, who came to control large swathes of territory, asserting influence over numerous unsophisticated ethnic groups. As the century progressed, many countries, still under European rule, rose in rebellion in what is known as the Colonial Wars. Despite being supported by the International, most of these wars resulted in failure, as European powers deployed superior military technology and maintained control over their colonial territories. Nevertheless, the uprisings sowed the seeds of increased nationalist sentiment, and provided fertile ground for the growth of the ideologies of Garveyism, Pan-Africanism, and Marxism, with the creation of the Forum for the Total Liberation of Africa in the mid-20th century. This, however, was in itself met with resistance by White-majority/plurality countries, such as South Africa and Rhodesland, who promoted policies of Apartheid/Aparthood, further entrenching racial divisions and fueling conflicts across the continent. White-dominated administrations often depicted themselves as bulwarks against communism and radicalism, thus gaining tacit support from Western powers embroiled in Cold War dynamics.
The latter part of the 20th century and the 21st century have been characterized by rapid industrial growth in many parts of the continent, although this progress has been unevenly distributed. While some nations, such as those from Iberoafrica, Egypt, South Africa, New Israel, and Azania have achieved substantial economic development and modernization, others still face significant challenges due to political instability, corruption, and ongoing conflicts. Racial tensions continue to persist in countries with diverse demographics. In Nubia, the failed integration of the Ugandan principalities has led to continuous ethnic strife. Tensions in Angola and Azania have flared up in many cities due to the continued growth of European populations, leading to displacement and competition for resources. Most of Africa is divided between Europhilia, cooperation with European powers -the case of Bahaya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Igboland-; Garveyism, which promotes the unity and self-reliance of African countries; and Marxism, which seeks to address the economic inequalities and social injustices rooted in colonialism and capitalism.
Politically, Africa consists of 52 countries and territories, some of which hold strong and important ties to their metropoles. Liberia, for example, is a constituent country of the United British Empire, while Angola exists as a highly autonomous "Ultramarine Province" of Portugal. Some countries such as Mali, Egypt, and Kongo are fully sovereign independent entities. Some territories are directly controlled by their European colonizers, such as Spanish Ecuador, Danish Cristiansborg, Polish Casamance, and the various coastal enclaves of the Netherlands, while others have been directly incorporated into their metropoles, such as Portuguese Cabo Verde and São Tomé, the Persian Horn Settlements, and French Sénégal. Nubia is the largest country by area, Ethiopia the largest by population, and Egypt is the continent's largest economy. There are two main continental unions - the African Society, headquartered in Addis Abeba, and the African Union, previously headquartered in Maiduguri, although it has lacked a seat since the capture of the city in mid-2024 by Libyan forces. On July 4, 2024, the new headquarters of the AU were agreed to be established in Bamako, Mali.