标题: Africa—The Mysterious Land [打印本页] 作者: 李冰 时间: 2006-12-11 12:35 标题: Africa—The Mysterious Land
Africa—The Mysterious Land
The Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation will be held on Nov. 4-5. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of diplomatic relationship between the People's Republic of China and African countries. Leaders from African countries are unanimous in their desire to strengthen ties with China and China's entrepreneurs. More Chinese are willing to know more about Africa—this mysterious land.
Africa, the planet 's 2nd largest continent after Asia, includes 53 individual countries. It contains the Nile River,the world's longest, and the massive Sahara Desert ,the world's largest. Africa covers about 30,370,000 km² including adjacent islands. With more than 890,000,000 people in territories, it accounts for about 14% of the world’s human population. By most estimates Africa contains over two thousand languages. Africa is the most polyglot continent in the world; it is not rare to find individuals there who fluently speak not only several African languages, but one or two European ones as well. Africans profess a wide variety of religious beliefs, with Christianity and Islam being the most widespread. Wild animals living in the great nature of Africa, such as African elephants, giraffes and herds of zebras proceeding across the continent, Africa is the paradise for wildlife.