The True Size of Africa

Africa is a huge continent, but just looking at a map of the world students might not realize just how big it is in comparison to other continents. Through Jim Gates's blog I found an image that puts into perspective just how big Africa really is. As you can see in the image below (created by Kai Krause and released into public domain), China, the United States, India, and many smaller countries all fit within the boundaries of Africa. The image is huge so to make it navigable I dropped it into Zoom.it before embedding it.


Applications for Education
If you're teaching world geography this image could be a good one to demonstrate to students how large Africa is. Alternatively, give students a world map and ask them to try to fit as many countries as possible into Africa.