CHAPTER TWO
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Overview of the African Continent
Africa is the world 's second largest and second most populous continent with about 30.2 million square kilometers (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers six percent of the Earth 's total surface area and 20.4 percent of the total land area. With 1.0 billion people (as of 2009), it accounts for about 14.72% of the world 's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagoes. It has 54 fully recognized sovereign states, 9 territories and three de facto states with limited recognition (Wikipedia, Free Encyclopedia: Africa). The continent 's hydrology is dominated by the Nile River in the north, the Niger River in the west, and the Congo River in central Africa. Less than one-tenth of the land area is arable, while nearly one-fourth is forested or wooded. The peoples of Africa probably speak more languages than those of any other continent. Arabic is predominant from Egypt to Mauritania and in Sudan. Northern Africans speak a family of languages known as Afro-Asiatic. The vast majority of sub-Saharan peoples speak Bantu languages of the Niger-Congo family, while smaller numbers in central Africa speak Nilo-Saharan languages and in southern Africa Khoisan languages. Peoples of European descent are found in mostly in the south; Dutch (Boer) migrations began in the 17th century, and the English first settled in what is now Kenya and Zimbabwe in the 19th century.
Africa as a whole is a developing region. Agriculture is the key sector of the economy in most countries. Diamond and gold mining are important in the south, while petroleum and natural gas are produced in the west. Despite these abundant
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