www.anAfricanSafari.com
The
place to find Safaris,
Tours & Accommodations in Southern Africa.
Africa is home to the oldest inhabited territory
on earth, with the human race originating from this continent
It is the largest of the three great southward
projections from the main mass of the Earth's surface. It
includes within its remarkably regular outline an area,
of c. 30,244,050 km² (11,677,240 mi²), including
the islands.
Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean
Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by
the Isthmus of Suez (transected by the Suez Canal), 130
km (80 miles) wide. (Geopolitically, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula
east of the Suez Canal is often considered part of Africa,
as well.) From the most northerly point, Cape Spartel in
Morocco, a little west of Cape Blanc, in 37°21' N, to
the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas in South Africa,
34°51'15? S, is a distance approximately of 8,000 km
(5,000 miles); from Cape Verde, 17°33'22? W, the westernmost
point, to Ras Hafun in Somalia, 51°27'52? E, the most
easterly projection, is a distance (also approximately)
of 7,400 km (4,600 miles).
The length of coast-line is 26,000 km (16,100
miles) and the absence of deep indentations of the shore
is shown by the fact that Europe, which covers only 9,700,000
km² (3,760,000 square miles), has a coast-line of 32,000
km (19,800 miles).
The main structural lines of the continent
show both the east-to-west direction characteristic, at
least in the eastern hemisphere, of the more northern parts
of the world, and the north-to-south direction seen in the
southern peninsulas. Africa is thus composed of two segments
at right angles, the northern running from east to west,
the southern from north to south, the subordinate lines
corresponding in the main to these two directions.
