I.

Introduction

Africa, second-largest of the Earth's seven continents, with adjacent islands, covering about 30,330,000 sq km (11,699,000 sq mi), or about 22 per cent of the world's total land area. At the end of the 20th century more than 13 per cent of the world's population lived in Africa.

Straddling the equator, Africa stretches 8,050 km (4,970 mi) from its northernmost point, Cape Blanc (Ra’s al Abyad;) in Tunisia, to its southernmost tip, Cape Agulhas in South Africa. The maximum width of the continent, measured from the tip of Cape Vert in Senegal, in the west, to Cape Xaafuun (Ras Hafun) in Somalia, in the east, is about 7,560 km (4,700 mi). The highest point on the continent is the perpetually snowcapped Mount Kilimanjaro (5,892 m/19,330 ft) in Tanzania; the lowest is ‘Asal Lake (153 m/502 ft below sea level) in Djibouti. Africa has a regular coastline characterized by few indentations. Its total length is about 30,490 km (18,950 mi), which in proportion to its area is less than that of any other continent.

The main islands associated with Africa, which have a combined area of some 621,600 sq km (240,000 sq mi), are Madagascar, Zanzibar, Pemba, Mauritius, Réunion, the Seychelles, and the Comoro Islands in the Indian Ocean; São Tomé, Príncipe, and Bioko in the Gulf of Guinea; St Helena, Ascension, and the Bijagós Archipelago in the Atlantic; and the Cape Verde Islands, the Canary Islands, and the Madeira Islands in the North Atlantic. Although considered geographically part of Africa, St Helena, Ascension, the Bijagós Archipelago, the Canary Islands, and the Madeira Islands have few, if any, economic, political, or cultural links with the continent. Their ties are rather with western Europe: St Helena and Ascension are dependencies of the United Kingdom; the Canary and Madeira islands are an integral part of metropolitan Spain and Portugal respectively.