Africa

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• Watch Country Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau is a small country on the Atlantic coast of West Africa. Its land is low and flat, and the tide pushes seawater far up its rivers. Off the coast lie the Bijagós Islands, where sea turtles nest and hippos swim in the sea. The 2026 national census counted about 2.2 million people.
• Watch Country Liberia Liberia is a country on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, with long beaches, many rivers and lush rainforest. It was founded in the 1820s as a home for formerly enslaved people from the United States and became independent in 1847. About 5.8 million people lived there in 2026.
• Watch Country Libya Libya is a large country in North Africa, on the Mediterranean Sea. About nine-tenths of it is the plateau of the Sahara, and it has no rivers that flow all year. Most people live along the coast, in cities such as Tripoli and Benghazi.
• Watch Landmark Lighthouse of Alexandria The Lighthouse of Alexandria was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Finished in about 280 BCE on the island of Pharos, it was said to be more than 110 meters tall. An earthquake in the 1300s brought it down, and in 1477 a fortress was built on its ruins.
• Watch Country Madagascar Madagascar is the fourth-largest island in the world, in the Indian Ocean off southeastern Africa. It split from other land more than 60 million years ago, so many of its plants and animals, such as its lemurs, live nowhere else. About 32.7 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch Country Malawi Malawi is a narrow country in southeastern Africa that curves along the Great Rift Valley. Lake Malawi, one of the deepest lakes in the world, covers more than a fifth of the country, and it is home to hundreds of kinds of colorful fish. About 21 million people lived there in 2026.
• Watch Country Mali Mali is one of the largest countries in Africa. Its north is part of the Sahara, its middle is the dry Sahel, and its south has savanna. The Niger River flows through it, and long ago great empires grew rich here from trade in gold. About 25.2 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch Country Mauritania Mauritania is a large country in northwest Africa where the Sahara meets the Atlantic Ocean. Dunes cover about half the land, ancient trading towns stand by desert oases, and many kinds of migrating birds spend the winter on its coast. About 5.3 million people live there.
• Watch Landmark Memphis Memphis was the capital of Egypt in the time of the first great pyramids, more than 4,000 years ago. It stood on the west side of the Nile, about 24 kilometers south of modern Cairo. Kings, priests, craftworkers and traders lived there, and its rulers were buried in pyramids and tombs along the desert edge, from Giza to Dahshur.
• Watch Country Morocco Morocco is a country in the northwest corner of Africa, with coasts on both the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Atlas Mountains cross its center, and its 2024 census counted about 36.8 million people, in cities such as Casablanca, Rabat, Fez and Marrakesh and in mountain villages.
• Watch Country Mozambique Mozambique stretches along the Indian Ocean coast of southeastern Africa. The great Zambezi River cuts through its middle, its beaches face the island of Madagascar, and parks like Gorongosa are home to elephants and lions. About 35.6 million people lived there in 2025, and Portuguese is the official language.
• Watch City Nairobi Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, sits high in the highlands of East Africa. It began in the late 1890s as a railway camp beside a Maasai water hole called Enkare Nairobi, "Cold Water." Today it is one of the biggest cities in tropical Africa, with Nairobi National Park, full of wild animals, at its edge.
• Watch Country Namibia Namibia lies on the southwestern coast of Africa. The Namib, a desert of huge dunes kept alive by sea fog, runs along its coast, a high plateau with farms and wildlife fills its middle, and the dry Kalahari lies to the east. Namibia became independent in 1990.
• Watch Country Niger Niger is a large, landlocked country in West Africa, named after the Niger River. The Sahara Desert covers the north, the drier grasslands of the Sahel cross the middle, and most people live and farm in the south. About 27.9 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch Country Nigeria Nigeria is a large country in West Africa, named after the Niger River. It has rainforests in the south and dry grasslands in the north, and it is Africa's most populous country, with about 238 million people in 2025 who speak hundreds of languages.
• Watch Country Republic of the Congo The Republic of the Congo lies on the equator in west-central Africa. Thick rainforests cover much of it, the mighty Congo River forms its eastern border, and it has a short coast on the Atlantic Ocean. Forest elephants and gorillas live in its parks. About 6.5 million people lived there in 2025, most of them in two cities.
• Watch Country Rwanda Rwanda is a small, landlocked country in east-central Africa, just south of the equator. It is often called the land of a thousand hills. Mountain gorillas live among its volcanoes in the northwest, Lake Kivu lies on its western edge, and about 14.6 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch Country Senegal Senegal is a country at the far western tip of Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean. Its capital, Dakar, sits on the westernmost point of the continent. About 19 million people live there, and the Senegal River, wetlands full of birds and quiet mangrove deltas make it a place of water as well as dry grassland.
• Watch Country Sierra Leone Sierra Leone is a country on the Atlantic coast of West Africa. Its name comes from Portuguese words meaning Lion Mountains, after the hills around Freetown's huge natural harbor. Rainforests, rivers and mangrove swamps are home to chimpanzees and pygmy hippos, and the 2021 census counted about 7.5 million people.
• Watch Country Somalia Somalia is the easternmost country of Africa, on the Horn of Africa between the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Most of it is flat, hot and dry, with thornbush savanna, and camels, goats, sheep and cattle are its greatest farm wealth. Its capital is Mogadishu.
• Watch Country Sudan Sudan is a large country in northeastern Africa. The Blue Nile and the White Nile meet at its capital, Khartoum, and the river flows north through the desert. Long ago, the kingdom of Kush built pyramids, temples and palaces along the Nile here.
• Watch Country The Gambia The Gambia is the smallest country on Africa's mainland, a narrow strip of land on both banks of the Gambia River. Except for a short Atlantic coast, it is surrounded by Senegal. More than 500 kinds of birds live there, and about 2.8 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch Landmark The Great Sphinx The Great Sphinx at Giza, Egypt, is a lion with a human head, carved out of the solid rock about 4,500 years ago. It is about 73 meters long and 20 meters high, one of the largest sculptures in the world. Most experts think it shows the face of King Khafre.
• Watch Landmark Thebes Thebes was one of the greatest cities of ancient Egypt and, for long periods, its capital. It lay on both banks of the Nile, where the town of Luxor is today. On the east bank stand the giant temples of Karnak and Luxor; on the west bank are royal tombs, including the Valley of the Kings.
• Watch Country Togo Togo is a small, narrow country in West Africa. It has only 51 kilometers of coast on the Gulf of Guinea but stretches about 515 kilometers inland, from beaches and lagoons to the Togo Mountains and northern savanna. About 8.6 million people lived there in 2025, and Lomé is the capital and main port.
• Watch Country Tunisia Tunisia is a small country in North Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its green, rainy north turns into dry steppes and then Sahara desert in the south, and about 12 million people lived there in 2024, many of them in the capital, Tunis.
• Watch Country Uganda Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa, on the shores of Lake Victoria, Africa's largest freshwater lake. The Victoria Nile flows out of the lake here, snowy mountains rise in the west, and its forests are home to mountain gorillas and chimpanzees. About 51.4 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch Country Zambia Zambia is a landlocked country on a high plateau in south-central Africa, named after the Zambezi River. On its southern border the Zambezi thunders over Victoria Falls. About 22 million people live there, and its copper mines have long made it one of Africa's great copper producers.