With 17% of the world population, Africa is the home of innumerable cultures. It covers 20% of the world’s total land area. The African natives speak more than 2000 languages and over 6000 ethnic and tribal groups are living on this continent. This diversity makes Africa rich with unique languages, arts, and cultures. Let’s find out more facts about Africa and explore them with ForeTVHub Live.
MOST IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT AFRICA, ITS LANGUAGE, GEOGRAPHY, AND CULTURE
Geographical Facts
With a 30.3 million kilometre area, Africa is the second-largest and second-most-populous continent in the world. It covers 20% of the world’s total land area where 1.3 billion people are residing as of 2018 census. Algeria is the largest country by area, and Nigeria is the largest country by a population in Africa out of the total 54 African countries. Nigeria represents 18% of the total African population.
World’s longest Nile River is situated in Africa that originates from Lake Victoria and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. The Strait of Gibraltar, Mediterranean Sea, Suez Canal, Red Sea and the Arabian Sea separate Africa from Asia and Europe. Africa is the hottest continent on the earth and the world’s hottest place Ethiopia is also located on it.
Cultural Facts
With thousands of tribal and ethnic groups, Africa has its own unique and diverse culture that has been influenced by external factors. Its diversity has expended with European colonization that impacted its economic, social, and political culture. Africa is the home of thousands of ethnic groups in which Yoruba is Africa’s largest ethnic group with 35 million people in total. The majority population of Yoruba comes from Nigeria. This ethnic group has a rich history and cultural heritage.
Some of the African tribes follow their unique traditions. For instance, the lip plates of Mursi, the bull jumping of Hamar, the red ochre of Himba, the spitting of Maasai, the healing dance of san, and the wedding ceremony of the Ndebele tribe are some unique traditions. Not only this, Africa’s other tribes like Zulu, Bushman, Samburu, Khoisan, etc. also have their unique traditions that seem fully strange to outsiders.
Lingual Facts
As a result of French colonial rule above than 50% of the world’s French speakers are living in Africa. Apart from this, continent natives have their indigenous languages and dialects. Despite their small size, each of the African counties has its unique language.
Due to colonial rule, English, Portuguese, or French words and dialects has been mixed in some of the African languages. Majority of the Northern African population speaks the Arabic language, whereas in the Eastern side of the continent the Swahili language has the dominance. There are fewer languages that were succeeded to spread in the bigger parts of Africa whereas most of the languages have contracted into the small regions.
THE FINAL THOUGHTS
The African culture is diverse and rich, winding up it in a single article is not possible. Its thousand tribes celebrate a wide number of festivals, rituals and customs. Each of the African languages has different dialects that have spread across various regions. Almost every African tribe holds a different and unique culture and they have their distinctive practices and traditions. Each tribe has deep faith in its own culture and rituals and its all members uphold these rituals with indestructible belief. If you want to learn more about this diverse culture, you can go with an Afrocentric media like ForeTVHub live. It comes up with regular facts related to the Africa continent and its wide culture on daily basis.
