Short answers, pulled from the story.
Africa covers about 30.3 million square kilometres, including adjacent islands. That is around 20 percent of Earth's land area and 6 percent of its total surface area, making it the world's second-largest continent after Asia.
Africa has the lowest median age of any continent. In 2012 its median age was 19.7, while the worldwide median was 30.4, and its population is projected to exceed 3.8 billion by 2100.
Afri was a Latin name for the inhabitants of northern Africa west of the Nile, likely first naming a Libyan tribe ancestral to modern Berbers. One idea links it to a Phoenician word for dust, while a 1981 hypothesis ties it to the Berber word ifri, meaning cave.
Most paleoanthropologists regard Africa, especially Eastern Africa, as the oldest inhabited territory on Earth. The earliest hominids date back roughly 7 million years, and Homo sapiens originated in Africa around 350,000 to 260,000 years ago.
As of 2025 Africa contains 54 fully recognised sovereign states. Algeria is the largest by area and Nigeria is the largest by population, and African nations cooperate through the African Union, headquartered in Addis Ababa.
Africa is believed to hold 90 percent of the world's cobalt, 90 percent of its platinum, 50 percent of its gold, and 98 percent of its chromium. The Democratic Republic of the Congo holds 70 percent of the world's coltan, and Guinea is the world's largest exporter of bauxite.
Independence movements gained momentum after World War II. Libya became independent in 1951, Tunisia and Morocco in 1956, and Ghana in March 1957 as the first sub-Saharan colony, with decolonisation cresting in the 1960 Year of Africa.