Africa is where humans first evolved.
It's here that the oldest human fossils have been found
and it's where many of the earliest languages and writing systems first emerged.
Because of Africa's role as the cradle of mankind,
it's hard to pinpoint exactly where the name came from
and there's actually quite a number of theories on the origin of the name Africa.
Interestingly, however, for a good part of human history
Africa went by a different name.
Ancient historians and geographers, like Herodotus and Strabo,
actually attributed the name "Libya" to the entire continent.
You can see that here in recreations of both of their maps.
At the time only the northern end of the continent had been explored by outsiders,
which today includes the countries of Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia and modern Libya.
It should also be said that Egypt was not at the time considered to be a part of Africa.
This land was given the name "Libya" after the Libu people
who lived just to the west of Egypt.
Despite being a rather small tribal offshoot,
for historians, like Herodotus, Libu came to represent the larger ethnic group of North Africans,
which today we would call Berber
who are lighter skinned and have more Western and Arab features than the Africans further south.
To Herodotus there were two ethnicites in Africa:
Libyans, who were found in the north,
and the Aethiopians, who were the darker skinned people found further south on the continent.
This is the origin of the name Ethiopian, by the way.
But to Herodotus the Aethiopians represented a small portion of the inhabitants of the continent,
despite the fact that today we know it's actually the other way around.
So he and others called the continent "Libya" to signify it as the "Land of the Libu".
Of course, this name didn't last.
So what happened? In short, the Romans.
And long at the height of their rule the Romans had conquered and controlled most of the coast of northern Africa.
But, being a rather large, expansive land, they broke into several provinces,
including Aegyptus, Cyrenaica, Numidia, Mauritania
and this area around the city of Carthage and modern-day Tunisia,
which was given the name "Africa".
Then, similar to Asia, the name came to mean larger and larger areas
until the entire continent was under its title.
First, when restructuring the provinces
the territories of Cyrenaica, Numidia and Mauritania
were placed under the control of the African diocese,
which was basically the administration or the local government of the time.
So now, Africa was basically the northern coast of the "continent Libya",
while today Libya is actually on the northern coast of the continent of Africa.
But then it stayed like this for a while
until the Roman Empire collapsed.
Once this happened the name "Africa" sort of fell out of official use,
as the province of Africa didn't exist anymore.
But then when Justinian I returned to conquer this land and annex it under the Byzantine Empire
the region became the exarchate of Africa.
Then when the Muslims eventually conquered the land
they gave it the name "Ifriqya",
which preserved the name, but not so much the spelling.
After this more and more was learned about the continent
and with each expedition into the interior the name "Africa" followed
until the name "Libya" was entirely displaced by "Africa".
So now, what most of you are asking is...
well, why did the Romans call that initial province "Africa" in the first place?
And with most names and words this old it's hard to say.
The ancient Romans would call it "Africa Terra",
which translates from Latin into "land of the Afri"
and at the time there was a tribe within Tunisia who were referred to as the "Afri".
And it is, likely, these people the name was referring to.
But it's still debated as to why they were called this.
From this debate two main theories have arisen
with a number of smaller ones as well.
The first is that "afri", or the singular "afer",
came from the Phoenicians who operated throughout the Mediterranean.
In their language the term "afer" meant "dust"
and could've been meant to describe the land where the Afri lived,
which on occassion will experience huge dust and sandstorms,
sometimes even visible from space.
The second main theory is that "afri" comes from the Berber word "ifri",
which means "cave", which some people in Tunisia were known to live in
and some of whom still do to this day.
Other theories included Greek origin from the word "phrike"meaning "cold",
so putting an "a" in front of it would negate it
and therefore "aphrike" would mean "without cold",
which is a pretty fitting description of the place, if you ask me.
Another idea is that "Africa" came from the Latin word "aprica" meaning "sunny",
which again also fitted.
Out of these theories we may never know the true origin of the name "Africa",
as that's about as far back as language and records would take us,
so I hope you're satisfied with that.
Thanks for watching and tell me which origin you prefer
or, if you have a theory of your own, let me know that as well.