Africa is a continent that covers 6% of the Earth's surface and 20% of the land surface. Its surface area is 30,415,873 km2 with the islands, making it the third largest in the world if we count America as a single continent. Its population of 1.3 billion inhabitants ranks Africa as the second continent in the world after Asia and represents 17.2% of the world population in 2020.

The continent is considered the cradle of humanity, where the ancestors of Man appeared, then, around 200,000 years ago, modern man who then spread to the rest of the globe. The Sahara, the world's largest hot desert, has created a hiatus, leading to distinct historical developments between the north and the south. Since South Sudan gained independence in 2011, Africa, including Madagascar, has 54 sovereign states (not including SADR and Somaliland). Africa is based on a social organization based on the extended family and ethnicity; there are a thousand ethnic groups on the continent, which at the same time has the highest linguistic diversity in the world with nearly 2,000 living languages.