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The Land Africa is the world's second largest continent. More than three times the size of the United States, it is home to enormous mountains, tropical rainforests, grassy savannas, three large deserts, and the world's longest river. The Great Rift Valley of East Africa is a huge crack in the earth's surface. The result is a stunning landscape stretching from Mozambique in the south, to Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan in the north. There are places along the rift where the walls of the valley are more than a mile high. Many lakes have formed in the Great Rift Valley. Lake Tanganyika formed in a rift and is almost a mile deep. Lake Victoria, on the border of Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, is the world's second largest freshwater lake. Victoria is a source of the Nile, the world's longest river. The Nile is one of the two longest rivers in the world.
Geographers have different definitions of where a river begins; so in
some measurements the Amazon River in South America is slightly longer
than the Nile. The Nile Mount Kilimanjaro is the tallest of the many mountains in East Africa. Kilimanjaro is a volcano that is no longer active. Kilimanjaro is located near the equator, but is so high that its peak is always covered with snow. Most of equatorial Africa, or land near the equator, is a lush, tropical rainforest. The climate is hot and wet; an average of more than 70 inches of rain falls annually. The rainforest is home to two-thirds of all of the living animal and plant species on earth. Rainforests absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. This keeps the earth's temperature from rising. If the earth's temperature rises, even by a few degrees, the ice near the north and south poles will melt and the oceans will rise. |
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has
been measured as flowing from between 3,417 and 4,225 miles long. The
waters from the Nile River made it possible for a civilization to flourish
in Egypt more than 8000 years ago.