LOCATION, POSITION, SIZE AND POLITICAL DIVISIONS OF AFRICA

LOCATION

Africa is located between latitude 37 degrees north and 35 degrees south of the equator and longitudes 17 degrees west and 51 degrees east of the Greenwich Meridian.

 

POSITION

Africa, the second largest continent in the world after Asia is bounded in the north by the Mediterranean sea which separates which separates Africa from Europe, in the south by  the Atlantic Ocean, in the east by Indian Ocean and to the north-east by Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden which separates Africa from Asia.

Africa is the most tropical of all the continents. It is almost bisected by the equator and about 43 percent of Africa lies between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricon.

 

SIZE

Africa in terms of land area is the second largest continent in the world. It has a land area of about 30.3 million square kilometres (about 11.7 million sq. miles), by this Africa occupy about ¼ of the world total land area. Africa is about three times the size of Europe. That of Canada and U.S.A combined, represent only about three-fifths of the total area of Africa.

Africa stretches for about 8,000km (5,000 miles) from north in Bizerte (Tunisia) to Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) in south, and 7,500km from Dakar in the west to Cape Gardaful in the east.

 

POLITICAL DIVISIONS

The Berlin conference 1886 brought about the partitioning of Africa among of the European countries. These development results in the political divisions in the continent.

Africa consists of 48 mainland and several islands countries. The islands are located in the oceans. Islands in the Atlantic Ocean include Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Canary and Equatorial Guinea, while in the Indian Ocean are Zanzibar, Comoros, Mauritius, Pemba and Malagasy (the largest Island).

 

Landlocked countries include: Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Sudan.