Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent. It is about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) and is the homeland of about a billion people in 61 territories. Africa is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south.

Africa is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin of humanity, as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids in Central Africa.

Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from the largest landmass of the Earth , and straddles the equator encompassing numerous climate areas, ranging from tropical to subarctic on its highest peaks

Africa remains the world's poorest and most underdeveloped continent. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 25 ranked nations were all African. The average poor person in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to live on only 70 cents per day, and was poorer in 2003 than he or she was in 1973.