It has burning desert and luxurious forest teeming with animal life.

North of Sahara desert on the Mediterranean coast are the Arab states, to the south are the ex-colonies , now self-governing . Europe is only 9 miles from the north African coast at the straits of Gibraltar. To the north east, in Egypt, the Suez isthmus joins Africa Asia. The isthmus is cut by the 72mile stretch of the Suez canal which provides passage for ships from the indian ocean to the Mediterranean sea and the Atlantic ocean .

The equator passes through the centre of Africa at mount Kenya, and most of the continent lies in the tropics, I. E, between the tropic of cancer and the tropic of Capricorn.

Because of Africa's smooth coastline there are few inlets and bays.

The largest island is the republic of Madagascar in the indian ocean. The cape Verde islands, the canaries, and Madeira are the groups of islands off the north west coast.

Most of the land is one vast plateau .

There is only a narrow coastal plain in most places but this broadens in the north east and north west.

The plateau is stepped, and on each step there are wide , flat tracts of the land with few mountains.

The highest mountain is Kilimanjaro, with it's 19,340 feet(5895 metres) uhuru peak, which is always snow covered though almost on the equator.

This and other mountains are volcanic in origin and a few volcanoes are still active. The atlas mountains cut off the Sahara from the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

The second largest freshwater lake in the world, lake Victoria, lies between the two arms of the Rift Valley.

One remarkable feature of the geography of the continent, and indeed of the world is the great Rift Valley, formed where the land has sunk between two faults in the Earth's crust.