There are 53 countries in Africa. The biggest country in Africa is Sudan, and the country with the largest population is Nigeria. Find more fun facts below.

Click on a map below to get a bigger image and more information:

Look at a political map of Africa and it's almost guaranteed that you'll see a few countries you may never have heard of, yet they are likely to be bigger than most countries in Europe. Check out this map of Africa and be surprised by the true size of the continent. Hear about East Africa and not sure what countries are included? Here's the UN map defining Africa's regions. Interested in how Africa was divided up during the "Scramble for Africa? Check out this map.

Maps of Africa are an invaluable tool when you're planning a trip. Africa is comprised of more than 50 countries spanning across deserts, mountains, forests and savannas. In fact Africa takes up a fifth of the earth's landmass. It's approximately 5000 miles from Tunisia to South Africa (north to south) and about 4,600 miles from east to west at its widest point.

01 of 11 Political Map of Africa (2008) Political Map of Africa, accurate in 2008. Find more maps and facts about Africa. Political map of Africa from 2008.

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02 of 11 Regional Map of Africa Wikipedia, Creative Commons You often hear people referring to East Africa, or North Africa but it's not always clear which countries belong to which region. Find out from the list below: Northern Africa (shaded blue on the map) includes: Algeria

Egypt

Libya

Morocco

Sudan

Tunisia

Western Sahara Western Africa (shaded green on the map) includes: Benin

Burkina Faso

Cape Verde

Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Gambia

Ghana

Guinea

Guinea-Bissau

Liberia

Mali

Mauritania

Niger

Nigeria

Senegal

Sierra Leone

Togo Eastern Africa (shaded yellow on the map) includes: Burundi

Comoros

Djibouti

Eritrea

Ethiopia

Kenya

Madagascar

Malawi

Mauritius

Mozambique

Rwanda

Seychelles

Somalia

Tanzania

Uganda

Zambia

Zimbabwe Middle (Central) Africa (shaded purple on the map) includes: Angola

Cameroon

Central African Republic

Chad

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Equatorial Guinea

Gabon

Republic of the Congo

São Tomé and Príncipe Botswana

Lesotho

Namibia

South Africa

Swaziland

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03 of 11 Blank Outline Map of Africa Creative Commons A blank map of Africa is a useful tool for any classroom or to simply test your own knowledge of African geography. Try and name all 53 countries correctly!

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04 of 11 Blank Political Map of Africa CC A nice blank map of Africa with countries outlined, perfect for school projects. A nice blank map of Africa with countries outlined, perfect for school projects

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05 of 11 Map of Natural Vegetation in Africa - African Vegetation Map Courtesy of the University of Texas Map of Africa showing natural vegetation including deserts, savanna, tropical rainforest, tundra, woodland and more.

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06 of 11 Topographical Map of Africa NASA From this topographical map of Africa you can clearly see the Atlas Mountain Range in Morocco (NW) and the Rift Valley Lakes of East Africa. Africa's topography is incredibly varied. Its mountain ranges, savannahs, plateaus, lakes, rivers and deserts sustain an incredibly diverse array of life. A brief description of Africa's topography follows below, courtesy of NASA: Its Olduvai Gorge region is known as the "cradle of humanity," the site of the earliest known human habitation. The arid Sahara is Earth's largest desert. Mt. Kilimanjaro, despite its proximity to the equator, is tall enough to sport glaciers, though they are rapidly melting due to climate change (scientists hope to combine the new elevation data with other satellite imagery of the area to better monitor and understand the environmental changes taking place there). The Great Rift Valley is one of the world's longest earthquake faults. Lake Victoria is the second largest freshwater lake in the world behind the U.S. Lake Superior. The Congo Basin is home to the second largest concentration of rainforests on Earth behind South America's Amazon. And, of course, there are the great savannas, such as the Serengeti, which teem with some of Earth's most exotic wildlife, including plenty of those elephants.

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07 of 11 Satellite Image of Africa NASA This satellite image of Africa from NASA clearly shows the vast Saharan Desert as well as the Kalahari desert in Southern Africa.

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08 of 11 Map of Africa 1829 Courtesy of the University of Texas In 1829 the slave-trade was booming in Africa, European colonization was on the horizon and the Zulus were an established force in Southern Africa .... In 1829 Africa was still an unknown quantity beyond its coast, to many outsiders. Freed American slaves were establishing a home in Liberia. Slavery was in full swing along both coasts. Livingstone was still at college and had not set off yet to explore the interior of Africa. Mungo Park had completed his adventures in West Africa by this time. The Zulus were consolidating their power in southern Africa during the 1820's as the Boers moved further inland to find more farm land and the British began to arrive in ever increasing numbers. Find out more about African History ...

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09 of 11 Map of Africa from 1890 EB No License Map From 1880-1914 the European powers divided the map of Africa amongst themselves; this period is known as "The Scramble for Africa". Africans were not consulted. Africa held many attractions for the European powers during the late 1890's. While explorers including Livingstone, Stanley and Speke had mapped out most of the continent during the 1850's, much of Africa was not under direct European control. But the 1890's marked an era where Europan powers, namely the British, French, Portuguese and Germans, decided that grabbing land for themselves and setting up colonies was an economic and poltitcal necessity. Africans did not consent or even realise their land was now in the hands of foreigners. In some cases entire tribes were massacared. For more details, Wikipedia has a nice synposis of this era with the conclusion below: Between 1885 and 1914 Britain took nearly 30% of Africa's population under her control, to 15% for France, 9% for Germany, 7% for Belgium and only 1% for Italy. Nigeria alone contributed 15 million subjects, more than in the whole of French West Africa or the entire German colonial empire. It was paradoxical that Britain, the staunch advocate of free trade, emerged in 1914 with not only the largest overseas empire thanks to her long-standing presence in India, but also the greatest gains in the "scramble for Africa", reflecting her advantageous position at its inception. In terms of surface area occupied, the French were the marginal victors but most of their empire was covered by desert. For more about Africa's fascinating history, see About.com's African History Site. Among other curious details, find out why Queen Victoria handily re-drew the border between Kenya and Tanzania in order to give her grandson a mountain of his own in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro.

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10 of 11 How Big is Africa? CC How big is Africa? It's fair to say that Africa is probably bigger than you think, even if you know it covers approximately 30,221,000 sq km (11,699,000 sq mi). How big is Africa? You can see from this map created by Kai Krause, that Africa is large. If you combine the USA, China, India, Europe and Japan - they all fit into the continent of Africa. Click on the map to see it in detail. The US can fit comfortably no less than three times. The UK can fit into Africa over 120 times. Even those of us who were educated in Africa may be surprised at these statistics. That's because the geography books at school tend to originate from Europe or the US, and show a proportionally skewed perspective of the world. Why Should Size Matter?

The fact that Africa is much bigger than most people realize just goes to show how little people know about the continent. This is not just a giant slab of land that's filled with poverty, disease and war. There are 54 nations in Africa, with cities, towns and villages. This is not a piece of land that can be generalized. A simple reality check by looking at this type of map, will hopefully lead at least some to find out a little more about the continent. And if you happen to be planning a trip to Africa, best to check out a map. Make sure you understand that combining a trip to Egypt with a safari in Kenya means you'll be covering more than two thousand miles. You probably wouldn't think of combining a visit to San Francisco with a quick side-trip to New Orleans, nor a trip to Paris with a weekend in Tel Aviv. More About: Africa Facts l Maps of Africa l Maps of Individual African Countries

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