Africa is the most country-dense continent on Earth and the one most commonly misrepresented on Western maps. Fifty-four sovereign states, 1.4 billion people, every major climate zone from Mediterranean to rainforest, and a set of borders that still mostly date from decisions made by European diplomats in 1885. Here is a modern guide.
Most of Africa's current borders were drawn at the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, where European colonial powers divided the continent into "spheres of influence" without consulting anyone who lived there. Lines were drawn along rivers, latitudes, or simple straight edges — and those lines became the borders of independent states when colonisation ended in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. A few later adjustments (Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia in 1993, South Sudan's from Sudan in 2011) changed the shape of the map, but most of it is still colonial.
The result is that many African countries group ethnicities that didn't consider themselves one people, and split ethnicities that did — an observation made most famously by historian Frederick Lugard but which has come to shape much of the continent's 20th-century politics.
The UN divides Africa into five geographic regions; the African Union divides it along slightly different lines into five regional economic communities; cartographers often split the centre into "Middle" and "Central" for clarity. Here they are, with every country and capital.
Northern Africa is the Maghreb plus the Nile Valley. The biggest by area is Algeria (2.38 million km²); the most populous is Egypt (112 million). Arabic is the dominant language across the region, with Amazigh (Berber) languages strong in the Maghreb.
West Africa contains the most populous country on the continent (Nigeria, ~225 million) and the Sahel zone along the southern edge of the Sahara. ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) is the main regional body.
The Congo Basin dominates this region; the two Congos — DR Congo and Republic of Congo — are separate countries, their capitals literally staring at each other across the river. DR Congo is the fourth-most-populous country in Africa (~103 million) and roughly the size of Western Europe.
East Africa is the largest region by country count and probably the most geographically diverse — Ethiopian highlands, Serengeti, Indian Ocean islands. Ethiopia (~120 million) is the most populous and the oldest continuously independent African country, never formally colonised (though briefly occupied by Italy).
Southern Africa is the smallest region by count but includes some of the continent's most developed economies. Eswatini and Lesotho are both enclaves: Lesotho is entirely surrounded by South Africa; Eswatini is bordered only by South Africa and Mozambique. See our world capitals guide for more on South Africa's three capitals.
Every African country and capital is in GuessGlobe's database. You can play a continent-focused quiz to drill just Africa until the map is second nature — the fastest way to fix your weakest regional knowledge without wading through Europe and Asia first.
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