Africa - a big continent

[mogster]

[WillParkinson]

1. See, this is where Ms. Palin made her mistake...

She should have taken this map and said, "I can see Africa from my window'.

(All kidding aside, wow, I didn't realize it was so huge. Thanks for sharing it.)

[UndertheOcean]

2. I don't get the point , Africa is big ? so ? big secret ? new discovery ?

~scratches head~

[Chulanowa]

3. It's often spoken of in the same way one speaks of "Chicago" or "England"

As if Africa were just one big uniform blob on a map

[Posteritatis]

20. Probably actually is to a lot of people

How many people do you know who refer to Africa as a uniform monolithic culture of some sort? I'll bet you a lot of them pull out the but-that's-different card if asked why they don't talk about Europe, or the United States, in the same way.

It's one fifth of the planet's land area and one sixth of the population, and as one of the other posters here said most people refer to it like it's some small internally-consistent thing.

[NuttyFluffers]

4. important! geography ignorance is a real issue worldwide.

geography gives humans a good grasp of one of the most important factors in the human story. the "whys" and "hows" are often easily traced back to the pressures exerted by geographic challenges (or opportunities). and it's not just americans that are bad at it -- most of the world has a poor grasp of geography beyond their small region of the world.

to know where you are and the scope of things helps you know where to go and how much effort is needed.

PS: and Africa is not "a country, over there, all lumped together", as easily as it slips off many a media creature's tongue as one.

[mogster]

16. I was surprised at how big it was

Good point about Africa being seen as one big structure, while it's really as diverse, or even more, than US and Europe.

[Swamp Rat]

5. Oi Mogster

:hi:

[mogster]

14. Hello

Nice to see you. Not much DU-time for me at present, I'm afraid :-)

[tavalon]

6. I knew and yet I didn't know as well as that illustration shows it

Dayum.

[pampango]

7. Flat maps make equatorial areas look much smaller and polar areas much larger so Africa,

with much of its land mass around the equator, looks much smaller in books like atlases than it really is. Conversely places like Greenland look to be many times their actual size. After years of viewing these images in school it is easy to think of Africa as geographically much smaller than it really is.

[cutlassmama]

8. Africa matters not until we find oil there, THEN it will matter

[Hannah Bell]

11. already found plenty of oil there, not to mention minerals, cropland, etc.

and africa has mattered for a very long time.

that's why thousands of foreign corporations & hundreds of thousands of foreign operatives are at work there in their various guises.

[The_Commonist]

12. That was a joke, right?

Pretty funny!

[davepc]

18. Africa has about 10% of the worlds discovered oil reserves

More then Sout America, North America, and Asia.

So I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Posteritatis]

21. I think you're a bit late to that particular party. (nt)

[Obamanaut]

9. Yes, it is very large, and contains many countries whose names we

never hear, but rather "...a missionary to Africa..." or "...African-American..."

Similar to the towns in Northern New York whose names we also never hear, but rather "...aircraft crashed in Upstate New York..."

[Brewman_Jax]

10. Africa is a continent, not a country

a very large and diverse place.

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Thanks! Reader had a map comparison like this in his book ...

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780679738695-0?&PID=28424

but I hadn't seen anything similar where I could link to it.

[hedgehog]

15. i know I spent hours and hours doing geography homework and

sitting in geography classes, but now I ask myself, "what the heck were we doing all that time? "

My ignorance of geography is embarrassing. What little I do know comes from casual reading about history, geology, etc.

[davepc]

17. Nobody in this thread watched the West Wing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM

[cynatnite]

19. I always loved big block of cheese day. n/t

[Odin2005]

22. K&R

[derby378]

23. Lest we forget, Africa is not a single country

It's made up of many smaller countries and ethnicities. Too many non-Africans still make the mistake of considering Africa as one big homogenous whole.