How many countries are there in Africa?

Here are some more fun resources for learning the names of all the countries in Africa. There are 53 of them, including the islands – Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe.

In an earlier post , I gave a neat countdown tool from UC Berkeley that gives you 10 minutes to name all the countries.

Now I have found some other fun ways to learn the countries. Owl and Mouse has a free download that lets you drop outlines of the countries onto the map of Africa.

43 things has a challenge that asks you to point to the countries as they are named. And PurposeGames has a similar map with a counter tells you how long you took and colour codes indicate whether it took you 1, 2 or 3 tries to identify it. As you mouse-over different countries, their names appear, and that helps you learn them.

I thought I would do OK on this task because I have learnt the names of all the countries by doing the Berkeley challenge. But so far I keep getting stuck on one of the countries. Where IS Malawi!! (OK, that long thing isn’t a lake, it is a country!). On my latest try, I scored 86% in 3.5 minutes. Definite improvement!

You’ll want a good map so you can study the countries before you take any of these challenges. Here is one from WorldAtlas.com.


Check out new developments in the formation of the East African Community in this item on my blog.

I don’t know about you, but I find it stimulating and expansive to learn new things. Somehow, the world is becoming a clearer place for me now that I know a lot more about Africa. Knowing the shape of the continent and having a better idea about the countries, gives me an indefinably clearer understanding of the issues and news I encounter.

The children at the School of St Jude in northern Tanzania are learning something similar. Their world is expanding as they receive a standard of education that is only possible through the support of people like you and me.

Why don't you take one of these learning challenges and report your score here?

Or you could just click through to the School of St Jude and make a small donation! Go on – make use of the interactivity of the web!



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Countries of Africa Challenge!

Here's a fun game developed by UC Berkeley students. This website challenges you to name the 53 African countries in 10 minutes. A clock counts down as you type in the names. When you have finished, it posts the names of the countries you omitted.

African Country Countdown

On my first try, I got a miserable 25 countries. I forgot some of the big ones (like Algeria, duh!) but I was pleased to get some unlikely ones. I tried it on my husband and it was fun to see the ones he knew that I missed. And even more fun to see the ones I got that he didn't!

Now I think I'll try a daily challenge. Let's see how long it takes me to learn the names of all the countries in Africa. I'll post my daily tally here – to keep me honest!

Would you like to try it too? Post your daily tally in the comments section. Let's see all our numbers grow. Here's a map of Africa as a reference. As we learn the names of the countries, we can check the map to see where they are, how big they are and what their climate is likely to be.

Map Source: BBC

The School of St Jude is in northern Tanzania, near the border with Kenya. How many countries have borders with Tanzania?




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Another great map!

The World Resources Institute report, World Resources 2005 -- The Wealth of the Poor: Managing ecosystems to fight poverty, details the steps necessary to empower the poor to use ecosystems both wisely and for wealth. The book presents lots of current information on environmental, social, and economic trends in more than 150 countries. The full World Resources database is accessible and searchable online at EarthTrends.

Here is one of the maps from the book. It shows how climate change will affect growing seasons in Africa in 2000-2050. The brown areas show which areas will be under greater stress through reduced agricultural production.



As I am deeply interested Tanzania, I peer closely at the map to see how it will be affected. I see that most of Tanzania is brown, meaning shorter growing seasons and lower food production. This means more malnourished children who will die young of preventable diseases.

The following map shows that in 1996 ALL districts of Tanzania had more than 14% of children underweight. In some districts, this was up to 48%. These figures can only get worse when climate change reduces the length of growing seasons.



I feel some relief to see that the northern edge of Tanzania, where the School of St Jude is in Arusha, will have longer growing seasons. Still, the country as a whole is facing the prospect of greater stress on food production.

When we care about an issue, we seek information so we are informed. We want to know what happens at the local level and also at the larger, national level. We want to know what is happening right now, and what the longer term holds. With good information, we have a clearer view and can make informed choices.

I believe that education is an investment in the future. For a relatively small donation to the School of St Jude, you can equip a bright child from the poorest family to be a teacher, doctor, nurse, engineer, a leader of the future. Desperately poor countries like Tanzania CANNOT advance without these professional skills. What a huge gift you will give – to the individual child, their family, their community and their country.



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Dynamic map of African history

Here’s a gorgeous thing from Brown University.

Animated Atlas of African History

The Animated Atlas of African History is a map that shows year-by-year changes of selected themes in the history of Africa between 1879 and 2002. Toggle buttons allow you to select which thematic layers to activate. Choices include:

• Territory names
• Changing boundaries, imperial rulers and political systems
• Violent conflicts
• Economic and demographic trends

You can advance or reverse the chronology and change the speed and pause on particular years. The site also offers a textual summary of the year-by-year changes. The Flash-based animation may be operated interactively on the web or downloaded as Mac OS X or Windows executibles.

The map is designed to be an instructional tool at the secondary and college levels as well as for the general learner.

Brown University teaches a course in African Environmental History. Check out the online course guide for some great resources.

What a great educational resource! And because it is online, the kids at St Judes can use it to learn about African history. I love it when these extremely poor children living in homes with dirt floors and no electricity can access excellent learning resources like this!

Thanks Brown University! This outreach program is great!



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