Africa is a continent of extremes. It’s extremely large, extremely dry, extremely poor, and extremely young. In fact, over half the continent is under the age of 25. Read on to find out 25 interesting facts that you might not know about Africa.
25
All of Africa was colonized by foreign powers during the “scramble for Africa”, except Ethiopia and Liberia.
24
There are 54 countries and one “non-self governing territory”, the Western Sahara, in Africa.
23
Before colonial rule Africa comprised up to 10,000 different states and autonomous groups with distinct languages and customs.
22
Arabic is spoken by 170 million people on the continent, followed in popularity by English (130 million), Swahili (100), French (115), Berber (50), Hausa (50), Portuguese (20) and Spanish (10).
21
Over 25% of all languages are spoken only in Africa with over 2,000 recognised languages spoken on the continent.
