Africa Geography Quiz
One of Africa's great rivers never reaches the sea, and it is far from the only surprise.
An Africa geography quiz with answers about rivers, lakes, deserts and mountains across the continent, from the Atlantic coast to the Great Rift Valley.
Did you know?
- Madagascar broke away from the Indian subcontinent about 88 million years ago and has been isolated ever since. That long separation is why around 90 percent of its plants and animals, including all of its lemurs, are found nowhere else on Earth.
- The Congo River is the deepest river measured in the world, with parts of its lower course more than 200 metres deep. Its powerful rapids have divided fish populations so completely that different species evolved on opposite banks.
- Lake Malawi contains more species of fish than any other lake in the world, with estimates of 700 to 1,000 kinds of cichlid alone. Most of them live nowhere else, and scientists study them to understand how new species form.
How Africa's landscape formed
Africa is the second-largest continent, covering about a fifth of the world's land. Much of it is an ancient plateau of very old rock, which is why the continent has fewer long mountain ranges than others and why many rivers tumble over waterfalls and rapids as they drop from the high interior to the coast. The equator runs almost through its middle, so climates repeat roughly in bands from rainforest to savanna to desert on either side.
The Great Rift Valley
In East Africa, the continent is slowly splitting apart. The East African Rift runs for thousands of kilometres from the Afar region towards Mozambique, with a western branch that holds deep lakes such as Tanganyika and Malawi. Volcanoes like Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya grew along its edges. Over millions of years, scientists expect the rift to widen enough for the sea to flood in and form a new ocean basin.
Deserts old and new
The Sahara covers much of northern Africa, yet it was green with lakes and grasslands as recently as about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, when shifts in Earth's orbit strengthened the monsoon. Rock art of cattle and swimmers survives in places that are now dry. In the south-west, the Namib is one of the oldest deserts on Earth, with some of the tallest sand dunes, coloured red by iron oxide.
Great lakes and rivers
Africa's rivers include the Nile, the Congo, the Niger and the Zambezi. The Congo carries more water than any river except the Amazon and crosses the equator twice. Lake Victoria, shared by three countries, is the largest lake in Africa and one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. These waters support fisheries, farming and hydroelectric dams, and they shape where many of Africa's cities grew.