PERCENTAGE of Africa’s population that is under 25 years old. Africa is the continent with the youngest population in the world. By 2050, one-third of the world’s young people will live in Africa.
Source: Brookings Institution
In the News, 2021: AFRICA
TOTAL COUNTRIES: 54
TOTAL POPULATION: 1.3 BILLION
jbdodane/Alamy Stock Photo
Young people in Guinea
60%
PERCENTAGE of Africa’s population that is under 25 years old. Africa is the continent with the youngest population in the world. By 2050, one-third of the world’s young people will live in Africa.
Source: Brookings Institution
Lucas Vallecillos/Alamy Stock Photo
‘CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION’
Africa is known as the ‘cradle of civilization’ because it’s the place where the first humans are thought to have evolved 5 million to 10 million years ago. It’s also home to the world’s oldest existing university, the University of Al-Karaouine (above), founded in 859 A.D. in Fez, Morocco.
240 MILLION
NUMBER of Africans who suffer from chronic undernourishment because they don’t have enough to eat.
Source: National Geographic
Donovan van Staden/Shutterstock.com
An elephant in Botswana
ENDANGERED SPECIES
Africa is home to some of the world’s most spectacular and most threatened animals, including elephants, rhinos, and gorillas. Poachers kill elephants for their valuable ivory tusks and rhinos for their horns, which are valued by those practicing traditional medicine, mainly in Asia.