Facts About Africa Day

May 25 is the Africa Day, which is celebrated as commemoration of founding of Organization of African Unity (OAU). On 25 May, 1963, leaders of 30 of the 32 independent states of Africa signed a founding charter in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. Then after in 1991, OAU established African Economic Community and in 2002, OAU became African Union. Thus, 25 May is celebrated every year as the Day of African Unity.





Africa Day is also celebrated by the African-Americans and many other nations in the world. 47th Africa Day was celebrated on 25 May 2010 in New York City. The function was hosted by African Union in collaboration with Universal peace Foundation and chaired by the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon where 600 members including 17 Ambassadors were present. The function was followed by an amazing and festive banquet featuring cuisines and culinary from all the 53 member nations of Africa. The growing role of Africa as a world power and towards world peace was another main theme of The the Africa Day 2010.

Facts About Africa People of Africa

Africa is a continent that has one of the most diverse ethnic groups and people belonging to hundreds of different tribes that have their own languages and dialects. Bantu Language speaking people of Africa are one of the major ethnic groups who can be found in South, East and Central Africa. People in North Africa belong to main groups: Berber and Arabic speaking people. Before decolonization, Europeans could be found in almost all the parts of Africa. South Africa has the largest population of White Africans.





Bantu-speaking people, Nilotic groups, Pygmy people, indigenous Khoisan groups, Bushmen people from Kalahari Desert, Berbers, indigenous Egyptians, Semitic people, Tuareg nomadic people of Saharan Africa, Nubians, Nilo-Saharan, Amhara people, and Tigrayans are some of the native and indigenous peoples of africa. Apart from the native Africans, people of Africa also include an important minority of Afrikaners, Anglo-Africans, and Colored who constitute the largest European-Descended groups in Africa. As a result of British colonies and European colonialism, Africa also saw large communities of settlers from Asia and especially the Indian subcontinent.

Facts About Africa Colonialism in Africa

African continent is home to wide varieties of ethnic groups and people speaking hundreds of different languages and dialects. Colonization and Colonialism have been in existence in Africa for many centuries including rulers and peoples from Arab nations, European nations and Asia. Arabs from Asia arrived in Africa in the seventh century who brought along with them Islam and Arabic languages to Africa, North Africa in particular, which remains a predominantly Arab speaking nation. East Africa also has large population of Arab Muslims and Southwest Asian settlers.





Europeans are known to have their presence in Africa from Greek and Roman era. In 16th century, Portuguese and Dutch arrived in Africa and established trading posts and forts along the coasts between western and southern Africa. Today, a large population of descendants of Europeans, mainly Dutch, French and German can be found in South Africa. Furthermore, Portuguese people settled in Angola and Mozambique and Italians in Libya, Ethiopia and Somalia. A large presence of Britishers can be found in Rhodesia, South Africa and Kenya. Large communities of people from Indian origins can also be found in South Africa and other parts of Africa, who came to Africa as a result of European Colonialism and British Colonies.

Facts About Africa The Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa, Somali Peninsula or Northeast Africa, is a large peninsula in eastern Africa that spreads in to the Arabian Sea for hundreds of km and lies on the southern side of the Gulf of Eden. Covering a land mass of about 2 million square km, The Horn of Africa includes the nations such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea. Many researchers and historians carry out the studies on The Horn of Africa while studying Ethiopian and Somalian Histories.




Most of the region of The Horn of Africa comprises of mountainous regions with the highest peaks in the Simien Mountains of northwestern Ethiopia. Many mountains receive over 2000 mm of annual rainfall, which is the main source of water for many regions of Ethiopia and even outside including Egypt. The entire region of The Horn of Africa includes a wide diversity of ethnicity and languages and some of the major tribes and languages include Somali, Afar, Amhara, Nara, Kunama and Oromo, among others.

Facts About Africa Problems in Africa

Africa is a continent that has been facing several problems including poverty, absence of democracy, unemployment, poor facilities of education, lack of infrastructure, child abuse and high rate of infant mortality, high levels of colonialism, corruption, crime and many other problems on the social and economic fronts. Although some improvements have been witnessed during the last 3-4 decades but still the problems in Africa are much more than in any other continent of the world.





Despite it being the richest continent in terms of mineral resources and the highest production of precious metals like gold, Africa continues to reel under extreme poverty and the lowest growth rate in the world. Unemployment, pollution, acute power shortages, spread of some of the highly contagious and dangerous diseases such as TB, Malaria, and HIV, lack of proper sanitation facilities, crime, shortage of skilled labor, lack of basic education, corruption and high rate of crime, are some of the old and never-ending problems in Africa. Africa's food problems and lack of proper and sufficient medicines keep on adding to the burgeoning problems in Africa.

Facts About Africa Sub Sahara Africa 2010

Sub Sahara Africa is the region of Africa that lies to the south of Sahara desert. Sub Saharan Africa includes all those African nations that are located partly or fully in the south of Sahara. Like the Sub Saharan Africa, there is another major region or classification about the Arab World, which lies mostly in the Northern Africa. Some regions such as Northeast Africa, Somalian Peninsula and Sudan are part of the Arab World despite its geographical location in the Sub Saharan Africa.




Sub Saharan Africa is often referred to as the Land of Black People or Black Africa. Sub Saharan Africa is the land of wide climatic diversity ranging from desert, semi-desert, savanna, tropical, subtropical, and rain forests and including South Africa and Congo regions that are considered as lands of mega-diversities. Sub Saharan Africa is considered as the poorest region of the world that suffers from massive mismanagement of monetary aids, political issues, corruption, chronic diseases, lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates and inter-ethnic conflicts. Angola, Burundi, Congo, Cameroon, Chad, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Botswana, Malawi, Swaziland, Namibia and Zambia are few of the countries in Sub Saharan Africa.

Facts About Africa Tribes in Africa 2010

Africa is perhaps the only nation that has hundreds of ethnic groups or tribes with different languages, dialects and culture. Africa is the land of people with wide range of social traits, customs, diverse origins, cultural difference, languages and dialects, diverse lifestyle, varying climates, and inhuman living conditions across its deserts and jungles, due to which there are hundreds of diverse ethnic groups and tribes in Africa.




For example, Bantu language speakers are common in southern, eastern and central Africa, Nilotic groups in east Africa and Pygmy in central and south Africa, to name the few. Some of the major ethnic groups and tribes with more than 10 million people include Arabs, Berber and Egyptians; Hausa in Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Chad and Sudan; Yoruba in Nigeria and Benin; Somali in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya; Zulu in South Africa; Fula in Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali, Central African Countries, Ghana, Chad, Sudan, Niger and Senegal; Shona in Zimbabwe and Mozambique; Amhara in Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia; Oromo in Ethiopia and Kenya; Igbo in Nigeria and Cameroon; Ljaw in Nigeria.

Facts About Africa Poverty in Africa 2010

Despite its immense wealth of natural resources and it being the largest producer of gold, most of the nations in the African continent fall far below in various index and ranking including GDP, living standards, quality of life, and many other human development index. According to the UN list of least developed nations of 50 countries, 34 countries are from Africa. Many countries in Africa have a per capita GDP of less than $200 per year making it literally impossible for the human beings to sustain and make two ends meet even for the bare minimum necessities of life.




Although some of the economies in Africa are doing better than the past few decades but the measures taken to eradicate poverty in Africa are much lesser in comparison to some of the Latin American countries that also suffer some of the same disadvantages. Even with large amount of arable lands and the potential for growing cash crops, African farmers suffer from poverty due to several reasons including the lack of political will, mismanagement of land and waste of huge monetary aids on mega-scale projects instead of better utilization on small scale projects and removal of poverty.

Facts About Africa South Africa Travel 2010

South Africa is a nation located at the southern tip of African Continent. South Africa is famous for immense diversity in culture, language, and some of the oldest archeological sites in the world. Johannesburg is the largest city of South Africa and Pretoria and Cape Town are the Capital cities for Executive and Legislative functions. Bordered by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Mozambique, South Africa is the land of varying landscapes, and rich in flora and fauna and it is often a good starting point for the tours to African Continent.




If you are planning to undertake South Africa Travel, you should get familiar with the climate, which varies from desert and arid in the northwest to subtropical in the east, being coastal regions. Summers can be extremely hot with temperatures over 35 degrees and winters with temperatures near zero degrees. South Africa Travel must include some of the most fascination places for exploring wildlife such as Kruger National Park and many other parks, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and some of the most important cities such as Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth.