Many people get confused about Africa. So many people refer to it as a country, when in fact, it’s a whole continent. Within Africa, there are 54 countries including south Sudan at this time, ranging from Algeria to Nigeria. The amount of countries found in Africa has increased, decreased and generally changed throughout history as most of the territorial divisions within Africa were made by the colonial powers.
One of the new countries found in Africa is Eritrea. Countries will appear and disappear over time as there are a number of conflicting ideologies and governments located in Africa. Despite being one of the biggest continents, too, Africa is actually the poorest. Despite the huge natural wealth, too, the continent has remained poor because of its colonial past.
Africa is the second-largest continent, and the second most populous continent, after Russia and Asia. There is about 30.2 million sq km within the continent, including the adjacent islands. The continent covers six per cent of the whole of the earth’s surface, and around a fifth of the total land area. Even more impressively, the continent has around one billion people taking up the land.
Indeed, that’d be rather impressive for a single country, but all of these statistics are shared between 54 independent countries. The huge continent makes up for over 14 per cent of the world’s human population, and today is often a recipient of charity from all over the world. Whilst not the whole of Africa is living in poverty, a large proportion of Northern Africa lives in dire poverty.
