africa as you hopefully know by now is
a massive continent about the size of
3.088 usa's
2.983 europes 0.68 asia's
14.021 greenlands 189
812.5 liechtenstein's or about the same
size
as all of africa so yeah pretty massive
indeed
so in what seems to be my continuing
series on weird geography facts
what are some of africa's weirdest
geographical phenomena
africa is massive and as i already made
a video about
crazy diverse if you don't want to just
take my word on that
the african continent has hosted
cultures from that of egypt
to the swahili city-states to ghana to
congo
to the zulu of south africa just to name
about point zero three percent of all
the examples out there
africa is so big that tangier morocco
and maputo mozambique are so far apart
from one another
that maputo is closer to purse western
australia
and tangier is closer to edmonton
alberta
africa is also home to the most
countries of any continent in the world
no seriously asia has 49 countries 51 if
you want to count taiwan and palestine
europe has 50 if you want to light the
comment section on fire or 51 if you
also want to light the combat section on
fire
and africa has 54
so much for africa all being one big
homogeneous country
africa is also the second largest
continent in the world
both in area and by population only of
course beaten by the monstrosity
that is asia africa however is one of
two continents
that spans both the equator and one of
the meridian lines
oceania actually spans the anti-meridian
but that's a pretty arbitrary difference
and thus africa spans the northwest
northeast
and southeast quarters of the globe as
well as the southwest
if you count the tiny little atlantic
islands like saint helena and ascension
island as part of africa
which they usually are while we're on
this subject though
it might be relevant to quickly point
out how equatorial guinea
although it encompasses territory in
both the northern and southern
hemispheres
has no territory actually situated on
the equator
so the equator passes through the
country but not
within the country of the seven
transcontinental countries within africa
five of them are on this list through
overseas territories
britain has the aforementioned saint
helena ascension island and tristan da
cunha in the atlantic
francis mayor creono and the french
southern antarctic lands
all surrounding madagascar spain has the
canary islands just west of morocco
as well as the cities of malia and
toyota and the plaza de soprania to the
north of morocco
portugal has madeira and lastly italy
has the palagia islands located not far
from tunisia
yemen also counts within this group with
the delightfully strange and beautiful
island of sokotra
and finally egypt is the only
contiguously transcontinental country
in africa meaning their connection to
another continent is
via land as long as you don't count the
suez canal
when you think of egypt one of the
things you almost certainly think about
is
well yeah you probably think of a lot of
things
yes there we go the nile kind of fitting
since nile
was the only real reason egypt was able
to really be a thing
and indeed whenever you think of denial
either the first or second longest river
in the world
you probably immediately think of egypt
even though it actually spans many more
countries
after crossing the egypt sudan border it
splits around the sudanese capital of
khartoum
a tiny city only about the size of
barcelona with one section becoming the
blue nile
with its source in ethiopia's lake tauna
while the other
becomes the white nile snaking through
south sudan
and passing through uganda into lake
victoria
its drainage basin however extends much
further
encompassing additional territory in
kenya tanzania rwanda
burundi dammer of congo eritrea and even
as far as
eastern chad going into southern africa
malawi is a country very much centered
on lake malawi
in fact although they don't control the
whole of the lake there are some
interesting things going on with its
eastern border first off in the southern
half of the eastern borders
their border with mozambique goes
straight through the lake
like lake borders normally do though
that somewhat awkwardly cuts off
chizumulu and likoma islands which
despite being just off the coast of
mozambique
and indeed within mozambican waters
still belong to malawi
albeit held as little exclaves in the
middle of mozambican waters
go further up the lake though and we see
just how much lake malawi means to the
country of malawi
as the border between it and tanzania
goes not through the lake
but literally all around the eastern
coast meaning that tanzania has a coast
on lake malawi
but not much more than that one thing
i've noticed about many countries in
africa
is how close many of their capitals are
to other countries
one example you probably know about by
now are the two capitals of the two
congos
kenshasa and brazzaville located right
across the congo river from each other
making them the two closest country
capitals in the world
despite this no bridge currently spans
the waters
meaning people either need to take a
ferry or fly even if
via somewhere else although as i am
making this video
a bridge between the two cities is
actually currently in planning phases
kinshasa and brazzaville however are far
from the only african capitals
to be located near their country's
borders in the north of the congo with
kanshasa
is the city of boraca located right
across the ubangi river
from bangui the capital of the central
african republic
which somewhat annoyingly doesn't
actually have the center of africa
within it
back in southern africa gabaroni
botswana
is also right along the border with
south africa
and the aforementioned maputo mozambique
is also not so far as well
speaking of botswana however let's wrap
this up with one final fact
which is that this region was extremely
close
to having a quadrupon border between
botswana namibia
zambia and zimbabwe how close exactly
about 150 meters the length of the
botswana zambia border
yeah botswana was basically like can i
please border zambia
and so no maybe it was basically just
like okay fine just a little
thanks for watching and i hope you
enjoyed this third installment of
milking the series for views
i mean helping you learn about the world
through weird geography facts either way
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