Physical Geography
of Sub-Saharan Africa
Serengeti Plain
Tropical Grassland
Northern Tanzania
It’s dry climate and hard soil prevent the
growth of trees and many crops, but they are
perfect for growing grass
It is the place where the largest numbers of
land mammals still make annual migrations
Mountains
Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest mountain
Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro are both
volcanoes
 Volcanic activity also produced the Ethiopian
Highlands and Mount Cameroon in West
Africa
Volcanic rock covers the Great Escarpment in
Southern Africa
An escarpment is a steep slope with a nearly
flat plateau on the top
Rift Valleys
East Africa
As continental plates
pulled apart over
millions of years, huge
cracks appeared in
the earth
The land then sunk to
form long, thin valleys
called rift valleys
Stretch over 4,000
miles
Great Lakes in Africa
Cluster of lakes
formed at the bottoms
of some of the rift
valleys
Lake Tanganyika is
the longest freshwater
lake in the world
Lake Victoria is
Africa’s largest lake
and the world’s
second largest lake
Kalahari Desert
Located in Southern Africa
Does receive small amounts of rainfall
Temperatures in the summer are very hot
Sahel
A narrow band of
dry grassland that
runs east to west
along the southern
edge of the
Sahara
People use the
land for farming
and herding
Rivers
The 2,900-mile-long Congo River forms the
continent’s largest network of waterways
The Niger River begins in West Africa and
flows north toward the Sahara, where it forms
an interior delta and turns to the southeast
It then cuts through Nigeria and forms
another huge delta as it empties into the
Gulf of Guinea
Tropical Zone
Tropics - Africa has largest tropical
area of any continent
- 90% of Africa lies between tropics of
Cancer & Capricorn
- High temperatures year around
Rain Forest
The major rain forests of Africa sit on the
equator in the area of the Congo Basin
One square acre of rain forest can contain
almost 100 different kinds of trees
Because the canopy (upper layer of branches)
is so thick with plants, leaves, and trees, the air
below the canopy is so hot and humid that
vegetation quickly decomposes