Page 66 - ie2 August 2019

WORLDVIEW

Africa has largest remaining populations of lion, elephant, rhinoceros, cheetah, hyena, and leopard in the world

In the early 7th century, the new- Suez Canal), 163 km wide. Geopolitically, the continent of Africa, as well as ocean-
ly-formed Arabian Islamic Caliphate ex- Egypt‘s Sinai Peninsula east of the Suez ic crust which lies between the continent
panded into Egypt, and then into North Canal is often considered part of Africa, and various surrounding ocean ridges.
Africa. In a short while, the local Berber as well. Between 60-10 million years ago, the So-
elite had been integrated into Muslim The coastline is 26,000 km long, and mali Plate began rifting from the African
Arab tribes. When the Umayyad capital the absence of deep indentations of the Plate along the East African Rift. Since the
Damascus fell in the 8th century, the Is- shore is illustrated by the fact that Eu- continent of Africa consists of crust from
lamic centre of the Mediterranean shifted rope, which covers only 10.4 million sq both the African and the Somali plates,
from Syria to Qayrawan in North Af- km – about a third of the surface of Af- some literature refers to the African Plate
rica. Islamic North Africa had become rica – has a coastline of 32,000 km. From as the Nubian Plate to distinguish it from
diverse, and a hub for mystics, scholars, the most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka the continent as a whole.
jurists, and philosophers; Islam spread in Tunisia, to the most southerly point, Geologically, Africa includes the Ara-
to sub-Saharan Africa, mainly through Cape Agulhas in South Africa, is a dis- bian Peninsula; the Zagros Mountains of
trade routes and migration. tance of approximately 8000 km. Cape Iran and the Anatolian Plateau of Turkey
Today, Africa contains 54 sovereign Verde, the westernmost point, is a dis- mark where the African Plate collided
countries, most of which have borders tance of approximately 7400 km to Ras with Eurasia. The Afrotropic ecozone and
that were drawn during the era of Euro- Hafun, the most easterly projection that the Saharo-Arabian desert to its north
pean colonialism. neighbours Cape Guardafui, the tip of unite the region biogeographically, and
the Horn of Africa. the Afro-Asiatic language family unites
Largest presence in southern Africa’s largest country is Algeria, and the north linguistically.
hemisphere its smallest country is Seychelles, an ar- The climate of Africa ranges from
Africa is the largest of the three great chipelago off the east coast. The smallest tropical to subarctic on its highest peaks.
southward projections from the largest nation on the continental mainland is the Its northern half is primarily desert, or
landmass of the earth. Separated from Gambia. arid, while its central and southern areas
Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is The African Plate is a major tecton- contain both savannah plains and dense
joined to Asia at its northeast extremity ic plate straddling the equator as well as jungle (rainforest) regions. In between,
by the Isthmus of Suez (transected by the the prime meridian. It includes much of there is a convergence, where vegetation

66 l INDIAN ENGINEERING EXPORTS l AUGUST 2019