Africa Facts

About 25% of Africa remains wilderness, compared to roughly 27% of North America—making them surprisingly similar despite very different development histories.

Niger (Africa) has the world's highest fertility rate - 7.1 children per mother.

More than 30 African nations have more cell phones than land lines.

More than half the population of Kenya is under the age of 15.

Senegalese women spend an average of 17.5 hours a week just collecting water.

The Giant South African Earthworm can grow up to 22 feet long and 1 inch in thick.

Somalia boasts the highest percentage growth of Internet users in the world going from a mere 200 in 2000 to 90,000 in 2007

A male baboon can kill a leopard.

In 2005, a 12-year-old Ethiopian girl was kidnapped by seven men trying to force her into marriage. When police found her a week later, three lions were standing guard around her. The kidnappers were gone. The lions turned and walked back into the forest as the humans approached.

A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside!

The first foreigner to become a samurai was an African slave.

The ancestor of all domestic cats is the African wild cat, which still exists today.

Some farmers in Kenya are using elephants' natural fear of bees and building "beehive fences" that keep wild elephants from trampling the crops. It keeps the farms safe, and prevents farmers from having to kill elephants to defend their livelihood!

More people in Africa speak French than in France itself.

The world’s largest frog, the Goliath frog, can grow over 13 inches in length and can jump up to 10 feet in a single bound.

When conservationist Lawrence Anthony died, two herds of wild elephants he had rescued walked 12 miles to his home. They stood there for two days. They had not visited in 18 months. Nobody called them. Nobody changed their feeding route. Nobody can explain how they knew. They came back on the anniversary of his death. Every year.

Lake Natron in Tanzania is so alkaline (pH up to 10.5) and hot (up to 60°C / 140°F) that animals that die in it get preserved and coated in mineral salts - their calcified carcasses inspired Nick Brandt’s famous posed-statue photos. The twist: this same caustic lake is where 75% of the world’s lesser flamingos are born. The soda flats and toxic water keep predators out, making it the safest nursery on Earth.

William Kamkwamba dropped out of school at 14 years old when famine hit Malawi and his family could not afford the fees. He walked to a local library and taught himself from the diagrams in a book he could barely read. Then he built a 16-foot windmill from scrapyard junk - and it lit up his family home.

Yacouba Sawadogo was a farmer in Burkina Faso who fought the desert with holes. He spent four decades digging zaï pits by hand. Each pit was packed with compost to capture rainfall and feed the soil below. Cracked, barren land became a living forest of nearly 40 hectares with more than 60 species. He won the Right Livelihood Award - the Alternative Nobel - in 2018.

African giant pouched rats can screen 100 TB sputum samples in under 20 minutes. A lab technician takes at least four days to do the same work. APOPO trains these rats, called HeroRATs, to spot TB cases standard tests miss. They also sniff out buried landmines. Too light to set the mines off.

Rupert Fothergill had just two boats and a handful of rangers. Rhodesia was damming the Zambezi River. Rising water was drowning an entire valley of wild animals. For five years, his rangers roped rhinos onto rafts and guided swimming elephants to shore. A second team worked the far riverbank too. Together, the two crews saved over 6,000 animals.

In 1324, Mansa Musa — ruler of the Mali Empire — made a pilgrimage to Mecca with a caravan of 60,000 men and thousands of pounds of gold. When he stopped in Cairo, he gave away so much gold that he crashed the local economy. The price of gold didn't recover for twelve years. He is widely considered the wealthiest person who ever lived.

An elephant spent 12 hours submerged in a 45-foot well near Tsavo, Kenya - breathing only through his trunk like a snorkel. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust pumped out 150,000 liters of water, drove a crane from Mombasa overnight, and lowered a vet into the pit to sedate and lift him out. 22 hours later, he walked into the bush on his own.

The Dallol springs in Ethiopia glow neon yellow and acid green - and their pH drops below zero, lower than battery acid. In 2019, scientists found no life in the harshest pools despite the liquid water. Liquid water alone is not enough for life.