2023 Facts & Figures: AFRICA

NET WORTH in today’s dollars of Mansa Musa, a 14th-century African emperor. When he ruled the empire of Mali from 1312 to 1337, he controlled about 80 percent of the world’s gold supply. His realm stretched from current-day Senegal to Niger and included all or parts of nine current-day countries.

^{Source: BBC}

SIZE in carats of the largest diamond ever found. That’s about 1.3 pounds. It was discovered in 1905 in a mine near Pretoria, South Africa, and cut into pieces. Today, South Africa is the world’s fifth-largest producer of diamonds.

^{Sources: U.S. News, geology.com}

APPROXIMATE NUMBER of languages spoken on the African continent. Most of those languages have several dialects. At least 75 African languages have more than 1 million speakers each. 

^{Source: Harvard University}

ESTIMATED NUMBER of elephants in Botswana, more than in any other country. While Botswana has worked hard to protect its elephant population and numbers are rebounding, the overall number of elephants on the African continent has declined by 30 percent in the past decade, due mostly to poaching and habitat loss.

^{Source: VOA News}

APPROXIMATE AREA in square miles of the Sahara, the largest desert in the world. The word sahara means desert in Arabic.

^{Source: Encyclopedia Britannica}