21 Facts About Africa That Will Make You Say ‘Wow!’

Not only impressive in its size but in its diversity, too, the African continent holds an array of secrets and scintillating tidbits of information that are sure to tickle the fancy of every traveller. Take a look at our facts about Africa compilation…

• The largest country in Africa is Algeria, spanning a whopping 2.382 million km², but 80% of it is covered by the Sahara Desert.
• In contrast, 459km² make up the continent’s smallest country: the Republic of Seychelles, an island nation. Found off of East Africa‘s coastline, the Seychelles is an archipelago comprised of 115 isles and islets.

• The average age in Africa is 19.7 years, making its average population the youngest of all the continents.
• By the year 2050, Africa’s population is set to double. The continent will account for half of the entire planet’s newborns with approximately 80 people born every minute by that time.

• Sounds like a lot of people, right? If space is what you’re after, then head to Botswana. This landlocked Southern African country is one of the most sparsely populated in the world with over a third of its landscape dedicated to wildlife conservation (no small wonder considering it is home to some prolific wildlife sanctuaries, e.g. the Okavango Delta).
• The largest city in Africa is also the fastest-growing city on the continent. Lagos has a population of 21 million people and it calls Africa’s richest country, Nigeria, home.

• Over 1,000 languages are spoken in Africa, according to conservative estimates, while UNESCO puts the number at closer to 2,000.
• It’ll come as no small surprise that Africa is the most multilingual continent on earth with a large portion of its inhabitants able to speak more than one language fluently.

• There are 135 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa, from the largest waterfall on earth, Victoria Falls, to the Serengeti, home of the Great Migration.
• One of the first and oldest universities in the world is found in Africa. While the University of Timbuktu is not a university in the modern sense, it was a collective term for the various teachings that took place across three mosques in Mali’s ancient city. Take that, Oxford!

• Speaking of ancient, Africa is the oldest inhabited territory on earth…
• … with the largest combination of density of animals.
• The continent has over 3,000 protected areas on land, 198 marine protected areas, 50 biosphere reserves, and 80 wetland reserves.

• You can see a 6,000-year-old baobab, one of the widest on the continent, in South Africa‘s Limpopo province. The best part? It has a bar inside.
• Speaking of trees, Cape Town‘s Company’s Gardens was first planted to replenish food supplies for Dutch ships passing around the Cape. It still exists today and holds the country’s oldest cultivated pear tree which was planted around the year 1652.

• The oldest item of jewellery in Africa to be found are a set of beads that date back 72,000 years. They were discovered in a cave along South Africa’s coastline.
• Modern-day historians estimate that at its peak, Great Zimbabwe was home to around 18,000 people. The present-day ruins of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe date back to the 11th Century, making them the second-oldest structures in Southern Africa (the first being Mapungubwe).

• Africa is home to the world’s oldest desert, the Namib, which in turn is home to the highest dune on the planet, Dune 7.
• Nevermind the oldest, Africa is also home to the largest hot desert. The Sahara Desert was once a green and fertile valley but today it’s dry expanse makes it the third-largest desert in the world (behind Antarctica and the Arctic, because, they’re deserts, too).

• The most desolate part of the Sahara Desert is known as the Tanezrouft. There is hardly any vegetation and summer temperatures often reach 52 degrees Celsius (125.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
• Experts reckon that 4% of the sand and dust in the Sahara can reach the Western Atlantic Ocean and America’s coastline. This phenomenon is known as the Saharan Air Layer.

That got your attention, didn’t it? There’s plenty more where that came from. If you loved this list, why not check out another one: 23 Crazy Animal Facts You’ll Find Hard To Believe.