Africa Abbreviations

AF is the abbreviation for Africa. There are 54 countries in Africa. Among them, the 10 largest countries are Nigeria (Population: 200,963,610), Ethiopia (Population: 112,078,741), Egypt (Population: 100,070,573), D.R. Congo (Population: 86,026,011), South Africa (Population: 58,775,033), Tanzania (Population: 51,046,011), Kenya (Population: 47,564,307), Algeria (Population: 43,000,011, Sudan (Population: 42,268,280), and Morocco (Population: 35,795,300).

Africa Overview

Africa, the world’s second largest continent; 30 million km², 1 305.2 million inhabitants (2019).The north-south extent of Africa – from Cape Blanc (Tunisia) to Cape Agulhas (South Africa) – is 8,000 km. Its east-west extent – from Cape Verde in Senegal to Cape Gardafai in Somalia – is 7,400 km. Africa is divided into 54 independent states.

The name Africa comes from Africa, the name of the Roman province in the Carthage area.

Africa Facts

• Area: 30 million km²
• Distance: 7,400 km (east-west), 8,000 km (north-south)
• Population: 1,305.2 million inhabitants (2019)
• Natural population growth: 2.5% per year
• Highest mountain: Kilimanjaro (5,895 m), Mount Kenya (5,200 m), Ruwenzori (5,110 m), Meru (4,565 m)
• Longest rivers: Nile (6,700 km), Congo (4,600 km), Niger (4,200 km), Zambezi (2,700 km)
• Largest lakes: Lake Victoria (69,000 km²), Lake Tanganyika (33,000 km²), Lake Malawi (31,000 km²), Lake Chad (10,000 – 25,000 km²)

Countries and territories

Prehistory

The earliest development of man has been in Africa, as far as we know. Many skeletons found in Africa are believed to have belonged to man’s immediate predecessors, such as “Lucy,” an unusually complete skeleton of female sex, found in 1974 at Hadar in northeastern Ethiopia. Approximately 3.6 million years old footprint of a fully erect hominid on Lake Laetoli in Tanzania shows that hominid predecessors lived by rudimentary collection.

Older paleolithic

(about 3,000,000-200,000 years before our time). The first stone tools in Africa were manufactured between three and two million years ago, probably by early members of the genus Homo. These are refusals and roughly cut stones, found on the Omo River in southern Ethiopia and Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. A now classic find area is the Olduva Gorge in Tanzania, where in 1959 Louis and Mary Leakey found the first skull of a hominid. The oldest part of the paleolithic in Africa has since been named Oldowan ; the period fell 2.2–1.6 million years ago. At Olduvai and at the Koobi Fora east of Lake Turkana many traces of Homo erectus have also been found from 1.6 to 1 million years before our time. Settlements of Homo erectus have been found throughout the non-rainforest part of Africa. Findings from the post-Oldowan period of the acheulé, which are scattered throughout the Old World, are characterized by hand wedges.

Middle Palaeolithic

(about 200,000–100,000 years before our time). The implements have been formed by thin, disc-shaped rejections of the pre-processed core shape (Levallois technique; compare Levalloisia). It is likely that the tips were shafted during this time, a sign of improved hunting methods. Important sequences have been found in caves in Cyrenaica, Tanzania and the southern Cape coast.

Younger paleolithic

(about 100,000 to 10,000 years before our time). Perhaps 90,000 years ago, the anatomically modern human or Homo sapiens sapiens lived in ambitious groups of hunters / collectors throughout Africa. Small game was the main focus of the game, and a large variety of edible plants were collected. The stone material is characterized by shavings, which in a reworked form could be included in composite implements. The oldest known rock paintings, from around 20,000 BC or earlier, are found in the Apollo 11 cave in southern Namibia. Many undated rock carvings and rock paintings are found especially in southern Africa but also sporadically in eastern Africa. More than 30,000 finds for rock paintings have been documented in the Sahara, and further examples are found in the Nile Valley.

Neolithic

(about 8,000–1,000 BC). New findings from the Nile Valley may indicate that groups were experimenting with the cultivation of grain as early as 16,000 BC. However, it is still generally believed that the cereal crop was introduced from the Far East. Oats, sorghum and dates, as well as the use of ceramics, are known from Nabta Playa in North Africa around 7000 BC. Probably more than 20 crops were domesticated about 5000 BC. and cultivated in the Sahel region of southern Sahara and in the Ethiopian highlands. Collaboration between many factors over a longer period of time resulted in a transition to food production in some groups, while others remained hunters / collectors. Domestic forms of short-horned cattle, sheep and goats are known from northern Africa as early as 5,000 years ago. Across the Sahel’s savannah, the agricultural complex was spread south and east to neolithic finds such as Ileret, North Horr and Ele Bor in western Kenya about 3000 BC. Kr. In West Africa’s forest areas, new crops were domesticated, such as jams, and the foundation was laid for later development. In places such as Iwo Eleru in southern Nigeria and Gombe in Congo (Kinshasa), there are pottery and grindstones from about 3500 BC. and 1500 BC respectively.

Metal Management

There are examples of early copper metallurgy in the Aïer Mountains in West Africa during the second millennium BC. It obviously precedes the boom of iron production in centers such as Carthage, Meroe and Nok. It is still a contentious issue as to whether the techniques have been spread from other areas or have arisen independently. However, there is no doubt that ironmaking was taking place in West Africa at sites such as Taruga early in the millennium, closest to BC. and by the large East African lakes at Haya at the latest around Kr.f. and that it then extended south across the savannah to southern Mozambique around 100 AD.

Then followed a period of growth and differentiation in agricultural communities, except along the northern coastal zone of Africa in at least eight sub-Saharan Africa areas, namely the West African Forest Area and the Savannah, the Middle Nile, the Ethiopian Highlands, the Great Lakes region, the Congo Basin, Zimbabwe plateau and coastal strip in eastern Africa. Each area was developed on the basis of long-established farming communities and maintained both long-distance and local trade.

Urban development and state education

Most unchangeable was the centralized Egyptian state of the Nile Valley, based as it was on intensive farming on the annually flooded plains by the river. The tradition was developed and transformed in a remarkable way in Nubia, which led to the flourishing of the states of Meroe (c. 400 BC – 400 AD) and Aksum (c. 200–600 AD) and culminated in a long-lasting, independent Christian power in Nubia and in the Ethiopian highlands.

In West Africa, more than 2,000 years ago, a long-distance trade network was established that spanned the entire Sahara. This must at least in part have contributed to the emergence of cities that Jenne-jeno at Niger’s participation from about 100 AD. Magnificent examples of sculpture and metal casting art have been documented from the West African states.

On the wooded savannas on the Zimbabwe plateau, state authority was asserted in urban centers that at Greater Zimbabwe only as late as the beginning of the second millennium AD. State power was based on domestically developed wealth in the form of livestock and was limited by the unstable cycles of burning. It was closely linked to a network for long-distance trade.

Control of productive resources seems to have been the key to the development of ruling elites across Africa. Trade in ivory, gold, iron and slaves was important to the state power, which changed to exotic import goods, which strengthened the government’s position. Power was expressed in forms that are sometimes visible archaeologically. The impressive architecture of the Pyramids on the Nile, the pillars of Aksum, the arched mosque in Kilwa and the massive stone enclosures in Zimbabwe, all indicate important advances in the organization of labor distribution that lay behind the state structure.

List of Africa Acronyms

The most commonly used abbreviations about Africa are AF which stands for Africa. In the following table, you can see all acronyms related to Africa, including abbreviations for associations, airlines, funds, non-profit organizations, and etc.