Africa has a huge land mass.
However, the most common map used, called the Mercator projection, makes Africa appear smaller than it actually is.
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| Source: https://www.worldatlas.com/geography/world-map-mercator-projection.html |
Africa is way bigger than you think.
Look at the usual flat map of the world and it appears that Greenland is nearly as big as Africa. But it’s not even close. Africa is 14 times larger. Flat maps significantly distort the sizes of countries and continents, the result of converting a spherical surface to a handy rectangle. The area of landmasses becomes increasingly exaggerated toward the poles.
As a result, we tend to underestimate the size of countries close to the equator, and substantially overestimate the size of countries closer to the poles. On our actual planet, Africa is bigger than China, India, the contiguous U.S. and most of Europe—combined!
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| Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-many-countries-fit-in-africa-visualizing-the-continents-true-size/ Africa is comprised of 54 countries.  Africa has a current population of 1.5 billion people. However, that population is not evenly distributed across the continent, Consider this graphic.  |
Nigeria has a population of almost 240 million by itself.
Ethiopia, on the other side of the continent, is second in population size with 135 million people.
Egypt is third with 118 million.
For context, the European Union has about 450 million people and there are 340 million currently in the United States.
However, if we look at annual births it is a completely different story.
Despite having a much larger population than the United States, the EU will have fewer births than the United States this year.
This low fertility rate, combined with the mass of migrants that have entered Europe, are primary reasons that I believe Europe will no longer be Europe in a generation or two.
In fact, that view is shared in a recent National Security Strategy assessment that was recently released by the Trump administration that said this about Europe.
“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”
“Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence.”
However, let's compare births in Europe and the United States to Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Nigeria (7.5 million) has more births than the United States (3.7) and the European Union (3.6) COMBINED!
This is despite the United States and Europe having a combined population that is over 3 times that of Nigeria.
Ethiopia is seeing more births (4.1 million) than both Europe (3.7) and the United States (3.6) individually. This is despite the fact the population of Ethiopia is only 30% of the size of Europe and 40% of the U.S.
Take a look at the population pyramid of Nigeria.
Nigeria's 240 million of population is distributed this way
It is an actual pyramid and a steep one at that.
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| Nigeria Population Pyramid |
52% of the population of Nigeria is 19 years of age or younger. That is 125 million people.
41% are 14 or younger. 98 million people.
Compare Nigeria to the population pyramid of the United States.
It isn't even a pyramid in the U.S. anymore.
There are more people in the United States between the ages of 65-69 than between the ages of 0-4.
There are more people age 70 and over than there are children under the age of 10.
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| United State Population Pyramid |
Nigeria has 40 million more children between the ages of 0-14 than the United States has.
There are 98 million children of that age in Nigeria compared to 58 million in the United States.
If we are concerned about how we can feed, sustain and educate 58 million children in the U.S., how is it going to be done in Nigeria?
In the meantime, there are complaints in the United States that it is a violation of human rights to exclude soft drinks and candy from food stamp eligibility?
We have 82 million people under the age of 20 in the United States.
If we are questioning where the jobs are going to come from in an AI world for these 82 million, how do all of the 125 million children of that age in Nigeria become gainfully employed in the future?
For perspective, the United States today has 20 times the GDP per capita of Nigeria.
While we are also concerned about where the power is going to come from for AI, in sub-Saharan Africa they barely have enough power for each person to turn on a 50 watt light bulb .
The entire country of Nigeria generates less electricity than Wyoming which is the least populated state in the U.S.
Grok provides actual data comparing Nigeria and Wyoming.
Nigeria's average generation hovers around 4 GW amid frequent blackouts, compared to Wyoming's 10 GW capacity, per IEA and U.S. Energy Information Administration data, underscoring chronic underinvestment in grids.
There is no chance for prosperity without power. Where is it going to come from in Africa?
Europe's population pyramid is even more distorted.
Europe has essentially the same number of people age 0-19 (20.7% of the population) as it has of those age 65 and older (20.2%).
It is likely to soon get even worse as births continue to fall.
How are all of those pensions in Europe going to be paid?
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| Europe Population Pyramid |
One final interesting factoid involving Africa is that of the estimated 1.2 billion ethnic Blacks in the world (15% of the world's population), 85% live in Africa.
However, 1/3 of the entire population of Blacks in the world reside in just three countries ---Nigeria, Ethiopia and the United States.
The size and growing populations in Africa will impact the world in many ways in the coming decades.
We are already seeing it in migration patterns.
The largely untapped natural resource potential of Africa will also undoubtedly impact the future.
Africa may look smaller than it really is on a flat map.
However, it will be of outsized importance in what happens in the world over the remainder of this century.
It remains to be seen whether Africa will see the leadership it needs for its people to prosper on that continent or internal failures lead to ramifications in other parts of the world.
There is no hope, absolutely ZERO hope, that good leadership will come from within Africa. They are incapable of governing properly.
ReplyDeleteThe only hope that Africa has of being properly governed is to have many of the smartest and best educated blacks in our country and anywhere else on the planet to go back to Africa and try to make things, right, at least the blacks here have had a taste of what democracy or at least a democratic Republic. Democracy looks like with a little bit of capitalism sprinkled over the top.
In the end, that may mean that 95% of the blacks on the planet live in Africa, and that would not be a bad thing.