Africa

Africa is a continent. Africa has many country conbined together to make the continent called Africa. Africa the second lagest continent, after Asia; located south of Europe and bordered to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and to the east by the Indian Ocean.

In the 1970's; Africa was a continet in Limbo. Development prove difficult, and regional and ethinic conflicts became rampant. The cold war place Africa countries between the USA and Russia. Increases in oil production by OPEC in 1973 affected the economic development of the African Countries.

Africa is a second larges continent 1997 est. pop 743,000,000 c.11,677,240 sq mi(30,244,050 sq km)Including adjacent Islands. Broad to the north(c.4,600mi/7,400 km wide), Africa straddles the equator and stretches(c.5,000mi)(8,050km) from cape Blanc(Tunisia) in the north to cape Agulhas(South Africa) in the south. It is connected with Asia by the Sinai Peninsula (from which it is separated by the Suez Canal) and is bounded on the North by the Mediterranean sea, on the West and South by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the East and South by the indian ocean. The largest offshore island is Madagascar; other islands include st. Helena and Ascension in the South Atlantic Ocean; Sao Tome, Principe, Annobon, and Bioko in the Gulf of Guinea, the cape verde, canary, and madeira islands in the North Atlantic Ocean; and Mauritius, Reunion, Zanzibar, Pemba, and the comoros and seychelles in the indian ocean.

Africa has been the home of great civilizations, particularly in Egypt, along the Mediterranean sea. In the eighteenth and ninteenth centuries, European nations conolized much of the continent. In the twentieth century, the colonies became independent countries.