A couple of weeks ago, a dear friend asked me this question: "Hey
Buddy! So what is the capital city of Africa?", and that got me thinking.
Upon a little research, I realized that most people especially those who have
not been to Africa do hold this view of Africa. As a result I decided to write
this piece to answer this question. Best to my knowledge, it is countries that
have capital cities.
The African continent showing the colourful flags of each country
Africa, just as Europe and Asia, is a continent consisting of over 54
countries: Yes 54 countries. Each of these countries have their own capital cities as well. She is the second largest and the second most
populated continent on the planet earth. It is a continent of over 2000 spoken
languages.
Before I even talk about the countries and their capital cities, I
will like to mention that Africa is sub - divided into 5 regions. These are
West Africa, East Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa and Central Africa. As
an example, I will mention some countries in each of these regions and their
respective capitals.
Below are each regions, some countries that are located in them and
the country’s capital city.
West Africa
Country Capital
city
Ghana Accra
Nigeria Abuja
La Cote d’ivoire Abidjan
Sierra Leonne Freetown
Liberia Monrovia
East Africa
Country Capital
City
Kenya Nairobi
Tanzania Mbabane
Ethiopia Addis
Ababa
Uganda Kampala
North Africa
Country Capital city
Egypt Cairo
Morocco Rabat
Algeria Algiers
Libya Tripoli
Southern Africa
Country Capital city
South Africa Durban/ Pretoria
Zambia Lusaka
Zimbabwe Harare
Central Africa
Country Capital city
Cameroon Yaoundé
Central African Republic Bangui
Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa
Chad N’Djamena
Rwanda Kigali
Of course there are many more countries but I cannot list all here
because the few listed here cleared the point that Africa is a continent and
continents do not have capital cities rather they have countries within them.
But each of these countries of course as illustrated above do have capital
cities just like Berlin being Germany’s capital city and Paris, France’s
capital city.
Come to think of it, should each continent have a capital city, which
city in which country will that be?
Let us think about that.
As a bonus, Africa is very diverse when it comes to language. There
exist thousands of local languages. Some of these are Akan language (Twi), Ewe,
Igbo, Hausa, Fula, Tonga, Amharic and Lingala.
Due to the colonial rule most African nations experienced, most of
them adopted "official languages" mostly from Europe. Some of these
languages are English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, German etc.
For example Ghana speaks English. So does Sierra Leonne, Gambia and
Kenya. For French speakers Cote d'ivoire, Djibouti, Madagascar are just
examples. Sudan and Egypt are predominantly Arabic speaking nations. Cameroon
is even bilingual i.e. they speak both English and French (two languages)
whilst Angola speaks Portuguese.
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| THE AFRICAN CONTINENT AND ITS COUNTRIES |
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