Facts for Kids

Africa is the world’s second-largest continent. It covers a huge space—about one-fifth of Earth’s land—and nearly 1.4 billion people live there. Many of those people are young: Africa has the youngest population of any continent, so you will find lots of children and young families.

Africa is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean, and it includes big islands like Madagascar. There are 54 countries, with Algeria the largest by land and Nigeria the most people. The continent has rich plants, animals, and natural resources, but it also faces problems such as desert spreading and pollution. What part of Africa would you most like to learn about?

Scientists call Africa the place where people first appeared on Earth. Fossils of very early human relatives in eastern Africa go back millions of years. Later kinds of early people, like Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa about 350,000 to 260,000 years ago.

Early humans lived as hunter-gatherers, moving to follow food and water. Around 50,000 years ago some groups left Africa and walked or sailed to other continents. At the same time, people spread across Africa—from the north to the south—so the whole continent filled with different groups and ways of living. What do you think helped early people choose where to live?

Long ago, small regions in the Nile valley joined together to form early states. In what we call Egypt, Upper and Lower regions united about 3100 BC and built big stone monuments, like the pyramids during the Old Kingdom around 2686 BC. Droughts and food shortages sometimes made these kingdoms change and break apart.

Other powerful states grew nearby. The Kingdom of Kush in Nubia became strong and at times ruled parts of Egypt. On the northwest coast, Phoenician settlers started Carthage, which later became a great city and trading power. Further south in the Sahel, places like the early Tichitt and later the Ghana (Wagadu) Empire grew wealthy by trading gold and salt across the desert with camels. Which ancient city would you like to visit if you could go back in time?

Slave trade means when people were taken from their homes and made to work far away. Between the 1400s and 1800s, millions of Africans were forced to the Americas; other people from Europe were taken to North Africa by pirates. When the Atlantic slave trade began to fall in the early 1800s, laws and British ships helped stop many slave voyages, and more than 1,600 slave ships were seized between 1808 and 1860.

This change pushed West African states to find new goods to sell, like palm oil, cocoa, timber, and gold. Some kingdoms that relied on the old trade grew weaker because they could not change fast enough. How do you think trade can change a whole society?

Scramble for Africa is the name people use for the rush by European countries to take parts of Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1870 only about 10% of Africa was controlled by Europeans; by 1914 nearly 90% was divided among them. The 1884 Berlin Conference set rules for this takeover. A few places, like Ethiopia and Liberia, stayed independent for longer.

After World War II many African nations won independence. Ghana became the first sub-Saharan colony to become an independent country in 1957, and 1960 helped many others become free. To avoid fights, leaders agreed to keep colonial borders when the Organisation of African Unity began in 1963. What would you do if you were helping a new country choose its leaders?

Climate change means long-term shifts in weather that can make some places hotter or drier. Africa sits between the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans and includes islands like Madagascar. It has rich natural resources and many kinds of animals, including the most large wild species (megafauna) because the continent missed some ancient extinctions. Yet Africa is the least wealthy continent per person, for reasons like its geography, the long effects of colonialism, and problems with corruption.

Many places face growing problems such as desertification, pollution, and threats to wildlife. The United Nations says Africa is very vulnerable to climate change, so people are working on ways to protect homes, farms, and forests. Did you know there are 54 countries in Africa, and Nigeria has the most people?

Medieval kingdoms in Africa were very different from place to place. Some people lived in small groups like hunter-gatherers, while others built large states such as the Akan, Yoruba, and Igbo in West Africa. The Bantu peoples moved across much of central, southern, and eastern Africa, bringing new crops and ironworking. Along the coast, Swahili towns traded with Arabia and Asia, and across the Sahel great trading kingdoms like Ghana, Mali, and later Songhai controlled long caravan routes.

Because trade moved goods and ideas, many places also changed their beliefs and arts. For example, Islam spread in the Sahel and cities built grand mosques, while the Kingdom of Ife and Benin are famous for beautiful bronzes and sculptures. What kind of ancient art would you like to see?

The shape of life in Africa changed when the climate changed. The Sahara was not always a desert. After the Ice Ages, about 12,000 years ago, the Sahara was green and had lakes and people living there. By about 5,000 years before now the region dried up and many people moved to wetter places like the Nile Valley around 3500 BC.

People in different parts of Africa learned to keep animals, grow plants, and make pottery. Cattle were kept long ago in North Africa, and crops such as sorghum were farmed in eastern places. Iron tools and long-distance trade also began to appear, helping towns and kingdoms grow.