Africa Images

Africa has eight major physical regions: the Sahara, the Sahel, the Ethiopian Highlands, savannas, the Swahili Coast, rainforests, the African Great Lakes, and Southern Africa. Africa is characterized by extensive, level or gently undulating plateau surfaces, giving it a high average elevation. Much of the continent is composed of a massive block of ancient rocks.

Africa's physiography is characterized by its ancient rock base forming large, elevated plateau surfaces, with geologically young mountains at its northern and southern extremities, like the Atlas Mountains and Cape ranges. Sahara is the world's largest hot desert, located in Northern Africa. The Sahel is a transitional zone of grasslands and semi-arid shrubland south of the Sahara, separating it from the tropical regions. The Ethiopian Highlands is a rugged, mountainous area in Northeast Africa. The Savannas is a vast grasslands with scattered trees, a dominant landscape in much of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Swahili Coast is a coastal region along the Indian Ocean in East Africa. The African rainforests include the Lush forests, with the Congo Basin rainforest being one of the world's largest. The Great Lakes are a series of large lakes in East-Central Africa, including Lake Victoria.

Horn of Africa, in Somalia. This photo, from NASA, shows the arid-to-semiarid landscape in the east of Somalia. The shape of this part of Africa seems like a horn of rhinoceros penetrating the Indian Ocean. In southern and northwestern Somalia there is a relatively dense thorn bush savanna. Northern region have mainly grassy plains. Northeastern Somalia and parts of the northern coastal plain there is a scarce vegetation.

Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, Dem. Republic of Congo and Zambia. This east-looking photograph features Lake Tanganyika, the second deepest freshwater lake in the world with a maximum depth of 1436 m and the longest lake in the world, stretching 660 km north to south. Its width varies between 16 and 72 km. The lake, bordered on either side by steep slopes, fills a long narrow trough in the western arm of Africa’s Great Rift Valley and supports a thriving fishing industry. The lake basin, a landform in which a block of the Earth’s crust dropped down between blocks that rise on either side, began to form nearly 25 million years ago as part of the Great Rift Valley (NASA, 1985)

The Aïr Mountains in the Sahara Desert, northern Niger, rise from the sea of sand to provide unique scenery. The mountain range hosts volcanic peaks, is traversed by deep valleys, and makes up one of the world’s largest ring dike structures, a rare circular feature born from early volcanic activity (NASA, October 31, 2018).