Monday, December 3, 2007

Basic Facts about the African Continent

The African continent, second-largest of the Earth's seven continents - covers about 30,330,000 sq km (11,699,000 sq mi), which makes up about 22 per cent of the world's total land area. The African continent is considered a core continent and hasn't moved at all in the past 30 million years. Africa has the world's longest river the Nile which is fed by the Blue Nile originating from Lake Tana in Ethiopia and the White Nile originating from Lake Victoria in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. It also has one of the most diverse amount of climates in the world. Everything from tropical rainforests, to deserts and snow capped mountains. Because of the diverse climates, the plant and animal life is greatly varied as well.
These conditions: a warm environment, diverse plentiful animal and vegetation, clean water, a good supply of oxygen from the rain forest vegetation created an environment for humans to develop and thrive. All types of humans in the homo genus have been found on the African continent. Modern day homo sapien sapiens supposedly developed in Africa starting 25,000 years ago. However, the Seliki harpoon was discovered in the Congo dating back 90,000 years ago.

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