Africa Facts
Africa Facts

31 Interesting Africa Facts

Karin Lehnardt
By Karin Lehnardt, Senior Writer
Published May 17, 2017Updated February 24, 2025
  • Africa is the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continent. The average poor person in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to live on just $.70 a day.[12]
  • Over one thousand languages are spoken in Africa, and some scholars place this number closer to two thousand.[15]
  • Africa has 54 sovereign countries, the most of any continent.[15]
  • Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa and the second-largest freshwater lake in the world.[10]
  • Egypt is the most popular tourist destination in Africa, attracting around 10 million visitors per year.[10]
  • While Egypt is most well known for its pyramids, the Republic of Sudan actually has 223 of its own pyramids, double the number of pyramids in Egypt.[10]
  • Four of the five fastest land animals reside in Africa: the cheetah, the wildebeest, the lion, and the Thomson’s gazelle. All of these animals can run at speeds above 50 miles per hour, with the cheetah reaching a top speed of about 70 miles per hour.[10]
  • Every year, women and children in Africa soend 40 billion hours walking to gather water.[4]
    • Amazing Africa Fact
    The United Nations estimates that Sub-Saharan Africa alone loses 40 billion hours per year collecting water
  • George Lucas filmed various parts of Star Wars in the Tunisian Sahara Desert. However, the movie sets are slowly being engulfed by moving sand dunes.[2]
  • Charles Darwin was the first to suggest that humans first emerged in Africa. However, prejudicial attitudes toward the continent made many people in the Western world highly resistant to the idea until well into the twentieth century.[16]
  • Africa is home to the world’s largest living land animal, the African elephant, which can weigh between 6 and 7 tons.[10]
  • Most etymologists believe the name "Africa" derived from Afri, the title for a group of people who dwelt in North Africa near Carthage around the third century B.C., and -ca, the Roman suffix for “country” or “land.”[9]
  • Ancient Greeks and Romans originally used the term “Africa” to apply only to the northern region of the continent. In Latin, the word Africa means “sunny,” and the word Aphrike in Greek means “without cold.”[10]
  • Ethiopia is featured prominently in several ancient Greek dramas and poems. The Greek poet Homer mentions Ethiopians in both the Iliad and the Odyssey as a “blameless race” and “amongst the noblest of men.”[10]
  • Islam is currently the largest religion in Africa, with Christianity following closely behind. These two religions make up 85% of the continent’s population, while just 15% of the population are nonreligious or follow traditional African religions.[12]
  • While Africa is the second largest of the earth’s seven continents, it has the shortest coastline, due to very few jutting edges and bays in its landscape.[3]
  • The deadliest animal in all of Africa is the hippo.[3]
  • In developing countries in Africa, women typically work 12 to 13 hours per week more than men.[8]
  • Tigers only live in Asia, not in Africa.[7]
  • The United States, China, India, New Zealand, Argentina and Europe could all fit within Africa.[3]
  • In South Africa, people can attach flamethrowers to their cars to prevent car jacking.[14]
  • The world’s largest frog, the Goliath frog, is found in Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon.[11]
  • Ethiopia is the only country in Africa with its own alphabet, Ethiopic. It has a whopping 345 letters.[6]
  • Benin, in West Africa, holds the the record for the country with the most twin births, at 27.0 twins per 1,000 births. The world average is 13.6 twins per 1,000 births.[1]
  • Nearly half of all the gold ever mined in history has come from Witwatersrand, South Africa.[13]
  • The ancient Egyptian city of Kahun was the first planned city in the world.[15]
  • Women in sub-Sahara Africa are 50 times more likely to die from childbirth than women in high-income countries. Additionally, their babies are ten times more likely to die during their first month of life.[17]
  • Common English words with African origins include, aardvark, banjo, chigger, chimpanzee, cola, coffee, gumbo, jamboree, jazz, jumbo, impala, safari, tango, voodoo, yam, zebra, and zombie.[5]
  • The oldest known mathematical object is the Lebombo bone, which was discovered in the Lebombo Mountains of Swaziland. It dates to approximately 35,000 B.C.[9]
    • Interesting Timbuktu Fact
    In its Golden Age, Timbuktu was an important scholarly center in Africa
  • Scholars describe West African city of Timbuktu as "the Paris of the Medieval World" because of its ancient intellectual culture. It is the home of thousands of medieval manuscripts, including poetry by women, legal reflections, and innovative scientific discussions.[15]
  • The world's largest reptile, the Nile crocodile makes it home in Africa.[16]
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