6 March 2024

While visiting southern Africa in January I was impressed at how large the continent is. Africa is huge – so big that the contiguous U.S. can fit inside it three times, as shown above.

For instance, the air distance from top to bottom of Africa – Tunis, Tunisia to Cape Town, South Africa – is farther than Seattle to Toyko.

This animation shows how Africa compares in size to other continents.

Asia is the only continent larger than Africa.

And Asia is the only continent with a larger human population than Africa’s. Africa comes in second in both cases.

To get an idea of this on your own, try thetruesize.com to see how big things are.

(credits are in the captions)