Geography @ NumptyNerd
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Africa is not a Country

Many of us think of Africa as a country and sometimes we can make fools of ourselves when we accidentally say that Africa is a country. Even worse, we might think of everywhere in Africa as being about the same.

Here Ugandan TV journalist Nancy Kacungira highlights some important differences on a continent that is big enough to swallow the world's most populous nations and still have room to spare.
Picture

​2,000 languages

More than a billion people live in Africa. There are more than 3,000 distinct ethnic groups; more than 2,000 languages are spoken.
​
It's a huge continent: the US, China, India, Europe and Japan combined could all fit into Africa.

Picture
Source: Geographical Magazine

Geographical Ignorance
Donald Kaberuka, former President of the African Development Bank, recently told a think tank in Beijing it "had become necessary to ensure that potential business opportunities in African countries are not jeopardised by a single story line whereby negative issues in one country are attributed to all 54 countries on the continent".

Look at the Ebola epidemic which hit Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia: the World Bank estimates the outbreak has cost other countries in sub-Saharan Africa more than $500m (£320m) in 2015. 
​
It blames ignorance of African geography. For instance, the Hotels Association of Tanzania said that advance bookings for 2015 were 50% lower. 
​
This in spite of the fact that Rome and Madrid are closer to the centre of the Ebola outbreak than Tanzania, which unlike Spain has never had a single case of the disease.
​
It is simply impossible to define Africa with just one description.
Picture
Hotel bookings are down in Tanzania because of the Ebola outbreak thousands of miles away in West Africa
In Africa you'll find Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Mozambique - four of the world's 10 fastest growing economies.
​ 
You'll also find some of the world's poorest countries.
​ 
You'll find Equatorial Guinea with a 94% literacy rate (the global average is 84.1%) and South Sudan with a 27% literacy rate.
PictureAddis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia - one of the world's 10 fastest growing economies

​African countries by GDP ($bn):

​Five largest:
Nigeria: 568.5
South Africa: 349.8
Egypt: 286.5
Algeria: 214.1
Angola: 131.4
​
Five smallest:
Seychelles: 1.4
Guinea-Bissau: 1.0
The Gambia: 0.8
Comoros: 0.6
Sao Tome and Príncipe: 0.3
​
Source: World Bank, 2014


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​Numpty Nerd™ is for anyone who loves Geography.
Geography is about learning to change the future. People need to have knowledge that empowers them to develop a sustainable future. Geographers aim to foster sustainable relationships between people and their environments.

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  • Home Page
  • Globalisation
    • Globalisation: a Geographical Process
    • Globalisation: Diaspora
    • Globalisation: Cultural Diffusion
    • Globalisation: fashion victims
    • Globalisation and Identity
    • Globalisation and Food Cultures
  • People & Planet
    • Agro-industrialisation
    • Air Pollution
    • Biodiversity loss is a SDG
    • China after the one child policy
    • Desertification in China
    • Natural Causes of Climate Change
    • Renewable Energy
    • Slow Food Movement
    • Technology: a Geographical Perspective
    • The Debate about Aid
    • Tourism: the Butler Model
    • Tourism as a Development Strategy
  • Places
    • Africa is not a country
    • Bangladesh: tourism
    • Milan - Italy's Superstar City
    • Nigeria: Africa's biggest economy
    • London: the capital city of the world?
    • Salford: a city regenerated?
  • The Tool Shed
    • Climate Graphs
    • Images and Captions
    • Critical Thinking >
      • Misleading Maps
      • Mapping an alternative World
      • Language and Geography
      • Gross Domestic Lies