The second largest continent in the world, Africa is home to some of the most fascinating history. The continent houses fifty four nations, which the UN recognizes. Further, Each country is home to hundreds of ethnic groups recognizable by their various languages and lifestyles. In a continent with such diversity below are ten unique facts the world does not know of Africa:
- Africa developed many things before Europe and Asia: language, clothes, art, textile making, music, writing, beds, burials, manufacturing, trade, religion and weapons. The earliest Greek writers also did not consider the people within the Greek peninsula as part of Europe.
- In Mali, the Niger-Congo speakers invented pottery around 10,000-9,500 BC (the first half of the 10th Millenium BC) in Ounjougou, Mali. This also means they knew how to apply fire to change the properties of raw materials. Further, This was 2,500 years before the first appearance of pottery in the Middle East. (Pottery in middle east first appeared around the Balikh river of Syria and Turkey).
- The continent with the most French speakers is Africa.. French is an official language in 29 African countries, making it the second most widely spoken language after Arabic.
- Asia has the most number of English speakers with more than 1 billion, followed by Africa with more than 475m; compared to 400m English speakers in North America and 300m Dnglish speakers in Europe
- The Big Five African animals are the African elephant, lion, leopard, rhinoceros, and buffalo.
- The tallest mountain in Africa is in Tanzania: Mount Kilimanjaro
- The Swahili city-states in East Africa also made coins for international trade. They are found as far away as Australia.
- The country with the smallest population in Africa is Seychelles.. It is an island in the Indian Ocean and has a population of 98,000 people.
- Africa is also home to numerous major rivers such as the Nile, Congo, Niger, Zambezi, Orange, Limpopo, Senegal, and Volta, making it challenging to provide an exact count of rivers on the continent.
- The continent is also home to ten African deserts: the Sahara, Kalahari, Namib, Danakil, Chalbi, Nubian, Nyiri, Blue Desert, Libyan Desert, and the White Desert.
