Geography of Africa
- Africa is the second largest continent (11.7 million square miles) and spreads across the equator. It is 4,600 miles from east to west and 5,000 from north to south.
- Africa has narrow coastlines on either side of a central plateau.
- Rivers drop down from the plateau and forms waterfalls and rapids, which makes navigation difficult from the coast. Because of this, there are few ports and harbors on the coasts, so the amount of usable coastline is smaller than Europe’s, which is one-third of Africa’s size.