The name Africa came into Western use through the Romans, who used the name Africa terra — "land of the Afri" (plural, or "Afer" singular) — for the northern part of the continent, as the province of Africa with its capital Carthage, corresponding to modern-day Tunisia.

The Afri were a tribe — possibly Berber — who dwelt in North Africa in the Carthage area. The origin of Afer may be connected with Phoenician `afar, dust (also found in most other Semitic languages); some other etymologies that have been postulated for the ancient name 'Africa' that are much more debatable include:

• the Latin word aprica, meaning "sunny";
• the Greek word aphrike, meaning "without cold" (see also List of traditional Greek place names). The historian Leo Africanus (1495-1554) attributed the origin to the Greek word phrike (φρίκη, meaning "cold and horror"), combined with the negating prefix a-, so meaning a land free of cold and horror. However, the change of sound from ph to f in Greek is datable to about the first century, so this is unlikely to be the origin.

Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from the main mass of the Earth's surface. It includes within its remarkably regular outline an area, of c. 30,360,288 km² (11,722,173 mi²), including the islands.

Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez (transected by the Suez Canal), 130 km (80 miles) wide. (Geopolitically, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula east of the Suez Canal is often considered part of Africa, as well.) From the most northerly point, Cape Blanc (Ra’s al Abyad) in Tunisia (37°21′ N), to the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas in South Africa (34°51′15″ S), is a distance approximately of 8,000 km (5,000 miles); from Cape Verde, 17°33′22″ W, the westernmost point, to Ras Hafun in Somalia, 51°27′52″ E, the most easterly projection, is a distance (also approximately) of 7,400 km (4,600 miles). The length of coast-line is 26,000 km (16,100 miles) and the absence of deep indentations of the shore is shown by the fact that Europe, which covers only 9,700,000 km² (3,760,000 square miles), has a coast-line of 32,000 km (19,800 miles).

The main structural lines of the continent show both the east-to-west direction characteristic, at least in the eastern hemisphere, of the more northern parts of the world, and the north-to-south direction seen in the southern peninsulas. Africa is thus composed of two segments at right angles, the northern running from east to west, the southern from north to south, the subordinate lines corresponding in the main to these two directions.

Africa is home to the oldest inhabited territory on earth, with the human race originating from this continent. During the mid 20th century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as 7 million years ago. The famous Leakey family, with ties to both Britain and Africa, discovered fossil remains of several species of early ape-like humans thought to have evolved into modern day man, such as Australopithecus afarensis (radiometrically dated to 3.9-3.0 million years BC), Paranthropus boisei (2.3-1.4 million BC) and Homo ergaster (c. 600,000-1.9 million BC). These are significant findings in the pursuit of the study of human evolution.

The Ishango Bone, dated to c. 25,000 years ago, shows tallies in mathematical notation. Throughout humanity's prehistory, Africa (like all other continents) had no nation states, and was instead inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers such as the Khoi and San (formerly known as bushmen).

Around 3300 BC, the historical record opens in Africa with the rise of literacy in Egypt, which continued with varying levels of influence over other areas until 343 BC. Other prominent civilizations include Ethiopia, the Nubian kingdom, Carthage, the kingdoms of the Sahel (Ghana, Mali, and Songhai) and Great Zimbabwe.

In 1482, the Portuguese established the first of many trading stations along the Guinea coast at Elmina. The chief commodities dealt in were slaves, gold, ivory and spices. The European discovery of America in 1492 was followed by a great development of the slave trade, which, before the Portuguese era, had been an overland trade almost exclusively, and never confined to any one continent.

But at the same time that slavery was ending in Europe, in the early 19th century the European imperial powers staged a massive "scramble for Africa" and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial nation states, and leaving only two independent nations: Liberia, the Black American colony, and Ethiopia. This occupation continued until after the conclusion of the Second World War, when all colonial states gradually obtained formal independence.

Today, Africa is home to over 50 independent countries, all but 2 of which still have the borders drawn up during the era of European colonialism.

In nations that had substantial European populations, for example Rhodesia and South Africa, systems of second-class citizenship were often set up in order to give Europeans political power far in excess of their numbers.

However, the lines were not often drawn strictly across racial lines.

The inspiration for this system was the United States Senate, which had balanced the power of free and slave states despite the much larger population of the former.

Europeans often changed the balance of power, created ethnic divides where they did not previously exist, and introduced a cultural dichotomy detrimental to the native inhabitants in the areas they controlled. For example, in what is now Rwanda and Burundi, two ethnic groups Hutus and Tutsis had merged into one culture by the time Belgian colonists had taken control of the region in the 19th century. No longer divided by ethnicity as intermingling, inter-marriage, and merging of cultural practices over the centuries had long since erased visible signs of a culture divide, the Belgians instituted a policy of racial categorization, upon taking control of the region, as racial based categorization and philosophies was a fixture of the European culture of that time. The term Hutu originally referred to the agricultural-based Bantu speaking tribes that moved into present day Rwandan and Burundi from the West, and the term Tutsi referred to North Eastern cattle-based tribes that migrated into the region later. The terms to the indigenous peoples eventually came to describe a person's economic class. Those individuals who owned roughly 10 or more cattle were considered Tutsi, and those with fewer were considered Hutu, regardless of ancestral history. This was not a strict line but a general rule of thumb, and one could move from Hutu to Tutsi and vice versa.

The Belgians introduced a racialised system. Those individuals who had characteristics the Europeans admired - fairer skin, ample height, narrow noses, etc. - were given power amongst the colonized peoples. The Belgians determined these features were more ideally Hamitic, Hamitic in turn being more ideally European and belonged to those people closest to Tutsi in ancestry. They instituted a policy of issuing identity cards based on this philosophy. Those closest to this ideal were proclaimed Tutsi and those not were proclaimed Hutu.

History

Africa is considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth, with the human species originating from the continent. During the middle of the twentieth century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as 7 million years ago. Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have evolved into modern man, such as Australopithecus afarensis (radiometrically dated to approximately 3.9–3.0 million years BC), Paranthropus boisei (c. 2.3–1.4 million BC) and Homo ergaster (c. 600,000–1.9 million BC) have been discovered.

The Ishango bone, dated to about 25,000 years ago, shows tallies in mathematical notation. Throughout humanity's prehistory, Africa (like all other continents) had no nation states, and was instead inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers such as the Khoi and San.

The domestication of cattle in Africa preceded agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gathering cultures. It is speculated that by 6000 BC cattle were already domesticated in North Africa. In the Sahara-Nile complex, people domesticated many animals including the pack ass, and a small screw horned goat which was common from Algeria to Nubia.

The first known example of the domestication of plants for agricultural purposes on the continent occurred in the Sahel region circa 5000 BC, when sorghum and African rice began to be cultivated. Around this time, and in the same region, the guinea fowl became domesticated.

In the year 4000 BC the climate of the Sahara started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace. This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink significantly and caused increasing desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and helped to cause migrations of farming communities to the more tropical climate of West Africa.

In the year 4000 BC the climate of the Sahara started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace. This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink significantly and caused increasing desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and helped to cause migrations of farming communities to the more tropical climate of West Africa.

By 3000 BC agriculture had arisen independently in both the tropical portions of West Africa, where African yams and oil palms were domesticated, and in Ethiopia, where coffee and teff became domesticated. No animals were independently domesticated in these regions, although domestication did spread there from the Sahel and Nile regions. Agricultural crops were also adopted from other regions around this time as pearl millet, cowpea, groundnut, cotton, watermelon and bottle gourds began to be grown agriculturally in both West Africa and the Sahel Region while finger millet, peas, lentil and flax took hold in Ethiopia.

In this period the international phenomenon known as the Beaker culture began to impact upon western North Africa. Named for the distinctively shaped grave ceramics, the Beaker culture is associated with the emergence of a warrior mentality. North African rock art of this period largely depicts animals, but also places a new emphasis on the human figure, equipped with weapons and adornments. People from the Great Lakes Region of Africa settled along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea to become the proto-Canaanites who dominated the lowlands between the Jordan River, the Mediterranean and the Sinai Desert. The Bantu expansion was a millennia-long series of migrations of the original proto-Bantu language group.

By the 1st millennium BC ironworking had been introduced in Northern Africa and quickly spread across the Sahara into the northern parts of sub-Saharan Africa and by 500 BC metalworking began to become commonplace in West Africa. Ironworking was fully established by roughly 500 BC in many areas of East and West Africa, although other regions didn't begin iron working until the early centuries AD. Copper objects from Egypt, North Africa, Nubia and Ethiopia dating from around 500 BC have been excavated in West Africa, suggesting that trans-saharan trade networks had been established by this date.

Since independence, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African nations are republics that operate under some form of the presidential system of rule. Few nations in Africa have been able to sustain democratic governments, instead cycling through a series of brutal coups and military dictatorships.

A number of Africa's post-colonial political leaders were poorly educated and ignorant on matters of governance; great instability, however, was mainly the result of marginalization of other ethnic groups and graft under these leaders.

As well, many used the positions of power to ignite ethnic conflicts that had been exacerbated, or even created, under colonial rule. In many countries, the military was perceived as being the only group that could effectively maintain order and ruled most nations in Africa during the 70s and early 80s.

During the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s Africa had over 70 coups and 13 presidential assassinations.

Cold War conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union also played a role in the instability. When a country became independent for the first time, it was often expected to align with one of the two superpowers. Many countries in Northern Africa received Soviet military aid, while many in Central and Southern Africa were supported by the United States and/or France. The 1970s saw an escalation as newly independent Angola and Mozambique aligned themselves with the Soviet Union and the West and South Africa sought to contain Soviet influence.

Border and territorial disputes have also been common, with the European-imposed borders of many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts.

Failed government policies and political corruption have also resulted in many widespread famines, and significant portions of Africa remain with distribution systems unable to disseminate enough food or water for the population to survive. The spread of disease is also rampant, especially the spread of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the associated Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), which has become a deadly epidemic on the continent.

Despite numerous hardships, there have been some signs the continent has hope for the future. Democratic governments seem to be spreading, though are not yet the majority (National Geographic claims 13 African nations can be considered truly democratic). As well, many nations have at least nominally recognized basic human rights for all citizens, though in practice these are not always recognized, and have created reasonably independent judiciaries.

There are clear signs of increased networking among African organisations and states. In the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire), rather than rich, non-African countries intervening, about half-a-dozen neighbouring African countries got involved (see also Second Congo War). The death toll has been estimated by some to be 3.5 million since the conflict began in 1998. This might play a role similar to that of World War II for Europe, after which the people in the neighbouring countries decide to integrate their societies in such a way that war between them becomes as unthinkable as a war between, say, France and Germany would be today.

Political associations such as the African Union are also offering hope for greater co-operation and peace between the continent's many countries.

Extensive human rights abuses still occur in several parts of Africa, often under the oversight of the state. Most of such violations occur for political reasons, often times as a 'side-effect' of civil war. Countries where major human rights violations have been reported in recent times include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, and Côte d'Ivoire.

Most western countries place limitations on aid to African nations, especially the United States. These limitations are often used to control the governments of these African nations; as a result, these nations are turning to non-traditional sources of financial aid. China has increasingly provided financial aid to Africa in order to secure contracts on natural resources, such as oil, gold, and diamonds. There usually is no political prescription. Countries the Chinese are investing in include: Central African Republic (plantations), Nigeria (oil & gas), Sierra Leone (tourism), Gabon (oil), Congo-Brazzaville (oil & wood-industry), Congo (copper & cobalt), Angola (railroad-system), Libya (oil), Sudan (oil), Uganda (coffee & fishing-industry), Kenya (communications-network), Rwanda (public works), Burundi (Nickel), Zimbabwe (infrastructure), South Africa (coal & gold).

Africans may be grouped according to whether they live north or south of the Sahara Desert; these groups are called North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans, respectively. Afro-Asiatic speaking peoples predominate in North Africa, while Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by a number of disparate populations grouped according to their diverse languages--Niger-Congo predominantly in West Africa, Nilo-Saharan in the Eastern highlands and Khoisan in the south.

Speakers of Bantu languages (part of the Niger-Congo family) are the majority in southern, central and east Africa proper; but there are also several Nilotic groups in East Africa, and a few remaining indigenous Khoisan ('San' or 'Bushmen') and Pygmy peoples in southern and central Africa, respectively. Bantu-speaking Africans also predominate in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and are found in parts of southern Cameroon and southern Somalia. In the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, the distinct people known as the Bushmen (also "San", closely related to, but distinct from "Hottentots") have long been present. The San are physically distinct from other Africans and are the indigenous people of southern Africa. Pygmies are the pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of central Africa.

The peoples of North Africa comprise two main groups; Berber and Arabic-speaking peoples in the west, and Egyptians in the east. The Arabs who arrived in the 7th century introduced the Arabic language and Islam to North Africa. The Semitic Phoenicians, and the European Greeks and Romans settled in North Africa as well. Berbers still make up the majority in Morocco, while they are a significant minority within Algeria. They are also present in Tunisia and Libya. The Tuareg and other often-nomadic peoples are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa. Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan-speaking group (though many also speak Arabic), who developed an ancient civilization in Northeast Africa.

During the past century or so, small but economically important colonies of Lebanese and Chinese have also developed in the larger coastal cities of West and East Africa, respectively.

Some Ethiopian and Eritrean groups (like the Amhara and Tigrayans, collectively known as "Habesha") have Semitic (Sabaean) ancestry. The Somalis as a people originated in the Ethiopian Highlands, but most Somali clans can trace some Arab ancestry as well. Sudan and Mauritania are divided between a mostly Arabized north and a native African south (although the "Arabs" of Sudan clearly have a predominantly native African ancestry themselves). Some areas of East Africa, particularly the island of Zanzibar and the Kenyan island of Lamu, received Arab Muslim and Southwest Asian settlers and merchants throughout the Middle Ages and in antiquity.

Beginning in the 16th century, Europeans such as the Portuguese and Dutch began to establish trading posts and forts along the coasts of western and southern Africa. Eventually, a large number of Dutch, augmented by French Huguenots and Germans settled in what is today South Africa. Their descendants, the Afrikaners and the Coloureds, are the largest European-descended groups in Africa today. In the 19th century, a second phase of colonization brought a large number of French and British settlers to Africa. The Portuguese settled mainly in Angola, but also in Mozambique. The French settled in large numbers in Algeria where they became known collectively as pieds-noirs, and on a smaller scale in other areas of North and West Africa as well as in Madagascar. The British settled chiefly in South Africa as well as the colony of Rhodesia, and in the highlands of what is now Kenya. Germans settled in what is now Tanzania and Namibia, and there is still a population of German-speaking white Namibians. Smaller numbers of European soldiers, businessmen, and officials also established themselves in administrative centers such as Nairobi and Dakar. Decolonization during the 1960s often resulted in the mass emigration of European-descended settlers out of Africa — especially from Algeria, Angola, Kenya and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). However, in South Africa and Namibia, the white minority remained politically dominant after independence from Europe, and a significant population of white Africans remained in these two countries even after democracy was finally instituted at the end of the Cold War. South Africa has also become the preferred destination of white Anglo-Zimbabweans, and of migrants from all over southern Africa.

European colonization also brought sizeable groups of Asians, particularly people from the Indian subcontinent, to British colonies. Large Indian communities are found in South Africa, and smaller ones are present in Kenya, Tanzania, and some other southern and east African countries. A fairly large Indian community in Uganda was expelled by the dictator Idi Amin in 1972, though many have since returned. The islands in the Indian Ocean are also populated primarily by people of Asian origin, often mixed with Africans and Europeans. The Malagasy people of Madagascar are a Malay people, but those along the coast are generally mixed with Bantu, Arab, Indian and European origins. Malay and Indian ancestries are also important components in the group of people known in South Africa as Coloureds (people with origins in two or more races and continents).

Africans profess a wide variety of religious beliefs, with Christianity and Islam being the most widespread. Approximately 40% of all Africans are Christians and another 40% Muslims. Roughly 20% of Africans primarily follow indigenous African religions. A small number of Africans also have beliefs from the Judaic tradition, such as the Beta Israel and Lemba tribes.

The indigenous African religions tend to revolve around animism and ancestor worship. A common thread in traditional belief systems was the division of the spiritual world into "helpful" and "harmful". Helpful spirits are usually deemed to include ancestor spirits that help their descendants, and powerful spirits that protected entire communities from natural disaster or attacks from enemies; whereas harmful spirits include the souls of murdered victims who were buried without the proper funeral rites, and spirits used by hostile spirit mediums to cause illness among their enemies. While the effect of these early forms of worship continues to have a profound influence, belief systems have evolved as they interact with other religions.

The formation of the Old Kingdom of Egypt in the third millennium BCE marked the first known complex religious system on the continent. Around the ninth century BCE, Carthage (in present-day Tunisia) was founded by the Phoenicians, and went on to become a major cosmopolitan center where deities from neighboring Egypt, Rome and the Etruscan city-states were worshipped.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church officially dates from the fourth century, and is thus one of the first established Christian churches anywhere. At first Christian Orthodoxy made gains in modern-day Sudan and other neighbouring regions; however following the spread of Islam, growth was slow and restricted to the highlands.

Islam entered Africa as Muslims conquered North Africa between 640 and 710, beginning with Egypt. They established Mogadishu, Melinde, Mombasa, Kilwa, and Sofala, following the sea trade down the coast of East Africa, and diffusing through the Sahara desert into the interior of Africa -- following in particular the paths of Muslim traders. Muslims were also among the Asian peoples who later settled in British-ruled Africa.

Many Africans were converted to West European forms of Christianity during the colonial period. In the last decades of the twentieth century, various sects of Charismatic Christianity rapidly grew. A number of Roman Catholic African bishops were even mentioned as possible papal candidates in 2005. African Christians appear to be more socially conservative than their co-religionists in much of the industrialized world, which has quite recently led to tensions within denominations such as the Anglican and Methodist Churches.

See also:
Republic of South Africa,
history of South Africa,
Timeline of Christianity