Africa

Africa, the second largest of the earth's seven continents, covering about 30,330,000 sq km (about 11,699,000 sq mi), including its adjacent islands. It comprises about 22 percent of the world's total land area. In 1990 about 12 percent of the world's population, an estimated 642 million people, lived in Africa, making it the world's second-most populous continent after Asia.