Africa: geographic position and history of exploration
Africa is the second-largest continent, with an area of about 30 million km². It is the only continent that the equator crosses almost through its middle and the prime meridian crosses in the west, so it lies in four hemispheres; its northern extremity (Ras Ben Sakka) is at about 37° N and its southern one (Cape Agulhas) at about 35° S. The westernmost point is Cape Almadi (about 17.5° W) and the easternmost Ras Hafun (about 51.4° E). The continent narrows from north to south: about 7 500 km wide in the north and 3 000 km in the south. The Strait of Gibraltar separates it from Europe and the Suez Canal from Asia; the Atlantic and Indian Oceans wash its shores, and its coastline is little indented (about 30 500 km). The big island is Madagascar, the big peninsula Somali, the big gulf the Gulf of Guinea. The oldest traces of humans were found in Africa and one of the first civilizations arose in the Nile valley (about 6 000 years ago). Important in exploring the continent were Ibn Battuta (14th century), B. Dias (rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488), V. da Gama (opened the sea route to India in 1498), D. Livingstone (Zambezi, Victoria Falls, Kalahari) and H. Stanley (Lake Victoria, Congo). N. Vavilov collected samples of cultivated plants in 1926–1927 and identified Ethiopia as a homeland of durum wheat.
“Extreme points”: find Africa’s four extreme points on the map, write their coordinates in the notebook and say on which ocean coast each lies.