Africa

If you have been reading the news lately you will be aware of how many articles focus on African Nations. Back in 1962/63 we "did" Africa as one of the six areas of the world in Mr. deKurloi's geography class. Ho-hum! I was fascinated by Texas's boasting about its size, when we could fit three of four Texases into Western Australia. Australia is the same area as the USA for comparison.

About ten years ago I worked out that the area of Western Australia, a million square miles, would occupy Libya, Egypt, and Sudan. But don't take my word for it.

To a Western Australian, Africa is BIG!

I have driven four times between Adelaide and Perth, driven from Toronto to BC and then around Alaska, back to BC and Toronto, 23,000 Km in 29 days, and have driven in every mainland state of the USA two or more times, so I have an experienced feel for the size of Australia and the USA.

But not Africa.

The drive from Cape Town to Tangier is over 11,000 kilometres; measure off that straight-line distance from where YOU live and see where that gets you!

From Perth:

Gabon, Turkey, Northern Kazakhstan, the Aleutian Islands, Hawaii, and some remote settlement in Southern Chile; which last is to say "the far side of the Pacific Ocean.

From London to The Phillipine Islands.

And yes, the distance is so great that Google Maps shows it as a great-circle route.

Wikipedia tells me that "there are now 195 independent sovereign nations in the world" and "The continent [of Africa] consists of 54 independent states", so Africa houses one quarter of the nations of the world.

Pleas see:-

https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Areal2BDistortions2Bof2BGlobal2BMap2BProjections.png

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