Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. It covers 6.0 percent of the earth's total surface area and 20.4 percent of the total land area.

With more than 900 million people in 61 territories, Africa accounts for about 14 percent of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the north-east, the Indian Ocean to the south-east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.

There are 47 countries on the African continent, including the disputed territory of the Western Sahara; and 53 when the island groups off the coast are included.

Africa, especially central eastern Africa, is widely regarded as the place where human beings originated; the earliest humans are believed to have lived there around 200,000 years ago.

Africa is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate zone to the southern temperate zone. Having no glaciers or mountain aquifer systems and with a lack of natural regular precipitation and irrigation, there is no natural moderating effect on the climate, except near the coasts.

From the most northerly point in Tunisia to the most southerly point in South Africa is a distance of approximately 8,000 kilometres; from Cape Verde, the westernmost point, to Ras Hafun in Somalia, the most easterly projection, is a distance of approximately 7,400 kilometres.

Throughout humanity's pre-history, Africa (like all other continents) had no nation states and was instead inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers such as the Khoi and San. The domestication of cattle in Africa precedes agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gathering cultures.

In the late 19th century, the European imperial powers engaged in a major territorial scramble and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial nation states and leaving only two independent nations: Liberia and Ethiopia.

Colonial rule by Europeans would continue until after the conclusion of the Second World War, when all colonial states gradually obtained formal independence

The European insistence of drawing borders around territories to isolate them from those of other colonial powers often had the effect of separating otherwise contiguous political groups, or forcing traditional enemies to live side-by-side with no buffer between them.

In nations that had substantial European populations, such as Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, systems of second-class citizenship were often set up in order to give Europeans political power far in excess of their numbers. Europeans also often altered the local balance of power, creating ethnic divides where they did not previously exist.

Many of those arriving in Australia from Africa are refugees fleeing their war-ravaged homelands, where they can see nothing positive in the future for their country, themselves or their families; and looking to find a safe and peaceful life.

John Borthwick / Lonely Planet Images