Geography
of Africa
Label Bodies of Water:
 Atlantic Ocean
 Gulf of Guinea
 Strait of Gibraltar
 Mediterranean Sea
 Suez Canal
 Red Sea
 Gulf of Aden
 Indian Ocean
 Mozambique Channel
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General Information
 11,608,000 sq miles
 Second Largest
Continent
 3.3 times larger than
the us
 20.2% of Earth’s Land
 1 Billion people
(and growing)
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Plateaus
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Africa is
dominated by
plateaus in
South & East
Escarpments & Cataracts
 Escarpment: A steep
slope or long cliff
separating two level
areas of differing
elevation
 Cataract: waterfall
or where the flow of
a river changes
dramatically
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Major Landforms
of Africa
Key Landforms:
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Atlas Mountains
Sahara Desert
Ahaggar Mountains
Tibesti Mountains
Sahel
Great Rift Valley
Ethiopian Highlands
Horn of Africa
Congo River Basin
Mount Kilimanjaro
Serengeti Plain
Kalahari Desert
Namib Desert
Cape of Good Hope
Savanna
 also known as tropical grasslands
 Most common environment in Africa
 rolling grassland scattered with shrubs
and isolated trees
 found in a wide band on either side of the
equator between tropical rainforests
and deserts
 warm temperature year round; a very
long dry season (winter), and a very
Short wet season (summer).
Serengeti Plain
An area of northern Tanzania bordering on Kenya
and Lake Victoria. It is internationally well-known
for its extensive wildlife preserve.
Sahara Desert
 almost 1/3 of the continent
 largest desert in the world
(Antarctica Doesn’t count)
 3,500,000 sq. miles (size of us)
 areas of Mountains, rocky plains,
rolling sand dunes and numerous
sand seas
 Regional deserts: Libyan, Nubian &
the Western desert of Egypt
KALAHARI DESERT
 100,000 sq. miles
 covers much of Southern Africa
(Botswana, southwest South Africa,
western Namibia)
 Along the coastal known as the Namib
Desert
The Sahel
 Comes from the
Arabic for
“shore”
 transition zone
between northern
arid Sahara and
the Southern
tropical area
 Prone to
droughts and is
experiencing
desertification.
Congo River Basin
 1,400,000 sq. miles
 20% of the world's rain forest
 dominates the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and
Central Africa
Great Rift Valley
 runs north to south
for 3,000 miles, from
Northern Syria to
central Mozambique
 In eastern Africa the
valley divides into
two, the Eastern Rift
and the Western Rift
Mount Kilimanjaro
The highest
mountain in
Africa, in
northeast
Tanzania near
the Kenya
border, rising
in two snowcapped peaks to
19,340 feet
Major
Bodies
of
Water
Major Rivers:
 Niger River
 Congo River
 Nile River
 Blue Nile
 White Nile
 Victoria Falls
 Zambezi River
Major Lakes:
 Lake Chad
 Lake Rudolf
 Lake Albert
 Lake Victoria
 Lake Tanganyika
 Lake Nyasa
The Nile River
 World’s Longest
river
 4150 miles
 Drains East Africa
 Blue Nile: Ethiopian
Highlands
 White Nile: Lake
Victoria
Top Ten Longest Rivers
1. The Nile in Africa with a length of 4,145 miles
2. The Amazon-Ucayali in South America with a length
of 4,000 miles
3. The Yangtze in Asia with a length of 3,900 miles
4. The Mississippi-Missouri in North America with a
length of 3,740 miles
5. The Huang in Asia with a length of 3,395miles
6. The Ob-Irtysh in Asia with an length of 3,362 miles
7. Rio de la Plata-Parana in South America with a
length of 3,030 miles
8. The Congo in Africa with a length of 2,900 miles
9. Parana in South America with a length of 2,800
miles
10. Amur-Ergun in Asia with an length of 2,761 miles
Aswan High dam & Lake Nasser
Lake Victoria
 largest lake of Africa and world's second largest
freshwater lake, 26,830 square miles
 on the Uganda-Tanzania-Kenya border
 occupies a shallow depression on the Equatorial
Plateau between two arms of the Great Rift Valley
Victoria Falls
 1 mi wide with a
maximum drop of
420 feet
 in the Zambezi
River on the
Zambia-Zimbabwe
border
Top Ten Cities in Africa
1. Lagos, Nigeria-- 8,029,200 (9,123,200)
2. Cairo, Egypt-- 7,764,700 (15,546,100)
3. Kinshasa, Dem Rep Congo-- 6,301,100
(7,527,500)
4. Alexandria, Egypt-- 3,806,300 (4,345,800)
5. Casablanca, Morocco-- 3,344,300
6. Abidjan-- Cote d' Ivoire-- 3,310,500
(3,972,300)
7. Kano, Nigeria-- 3,248,700 (3,519,500)
8. Ibadan, Nigeria-- 3,078,400 (3,670,400)
9. Cape Town, South Africa-- 2,686,000
(3,086,600)
10.Addis Ababa, Ethiopia-- 2,638,500
Lagos, Nigeria
Cairo, Egypt
Kinshasa, Democratic
Republic of the Congo
Cape Town, South Africa
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia