Africa is a continent comprising 63 political territories, representing the largest of the great southward projections from the main mass of Earth's surface. Within its regular outline, it comprises an area of, excluding adjacent islands. Its highest mountain is Mount Kilimanjaro, its largest lake is Lake Victoria.Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea The etchplains are commonly associated with laterite soil and inselbergs. Inselberg-dotted plains are common in Africa including Tanzania, the Anti-Atlas of Morocco, and the interior of Angola. One of the most wideaspread plain is the African Surface, a composite etchplain occurring across much of the continent. The area between the east and west coast highlands, which north of 17° N is mainly desert, is divided into separate basins by other bands of high ground, one of which runs nearly centrally through North Africa in a line corresponding roughly with the curved axis of the continent as a whole. The best marked of the basins so formed occupies a circular area bisected by the equator, once probably the site of an inland sea. The following table gives the details of the chief mountains and ranges of the continent:Flowing to the Mediterranean Sea The upper Nile receives its chief supplies from the mountainous region adjoining the Central African trough in the neighborhood of the equator. Madagascar in its general structure, as in flora and fauna, forms a connecting link between Africa and southern Asia. East of Madagascar are the small islands of Mauritius and Réunion.Great heat is experienced in the lower plains and desert regions of North Africa, removed by the great width of the continent from the influence of the ocean, and here, too, the contrast between day and night, and between summer and winter, is greatest. This disease has had a significant impact on African development not because of its deadly nature, like Malaria, but because it has prevented Africans from pursuing agriculture .Westernmost point — Santo Antão, Cape Verde Islands Easternmost point — Rodrigues, Mauritius The African pole of inaccessibility is close to the border of Central African Republic, South Sudan and Congo, near the town of Obo.Northernmost point — Ras ben Sakka, TunisiaSouthernmost point — Cape Agulhas, South Africa Westernmost point — Pointe des Almadies, Cap Vert Peninsula, Ngor, Dakar, Senegal Easternmost point — Ras Hafun, Somalia The highest point in Africa is Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania. The lowest point is Lake Asal, below sea level, in Djibouti.See also List of national parks in AfricaOutline of Africa#Geography of AfricaThe Horn of AfricaRichard Grant 2014. Africa. Geographies of Change. New York: Oxford University Press.
