Just how big is Africa?

I was looking at a map the other day with a friend, and he said, "Africa is just so huge compared to everything else" and I found myself thinking, "I have no idea what that really means". So I decided to figure out some way of getting a feel for it. So, here's the UK in comparison to Africa. If you walked from the south coast of England to the north of Scotland you would walk about 8° of latitude. Not much help to understand the distance though, eh? Well, a reasonably fit adult walks about 1km in 12 minutes. So at that rate, assuming you walk for 8 hours each day it would take you about 22 days to complete the journey. Do the same thing for Africa and you would walk for 200 days. That is about 7 months continual walking. The diagram shows you can fit about nine United Kingdoms along the North-South extent of Africa.


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