Africa

The world's hottest continent, Africa has rainforests and tree- scattered grassland (known as savanna), which are inhabited by a huge variety of wild animals. A third of Africa is covered by the sahara, the largest desert on Earth.

Much of Africa is made up of plateaux, flat areas of land high above sea level. The plateaux in East Africa is broken up by two extinct volcanoes like mount kenya and tanzania's mount kilimanjro and the great rift valley. The rift is a long crack in the earth's crust that runs from mozambique, through East Africa,the red sea and into southwestern Asia.

Africa lies into across the Equator, most of the comtinent gets extremely hot that is why africa is hot and dry. The world's highest temperature in the shade was recorded in Libya in 1932 at 58c. The land around the tropics, each side of the Equator, is starved of rain and more than half Africa' land has less than 500mm of rain per year.

In some regions, particularly around the Equato in West and central Africa, rainfall is high and large rainforests grow. Monrovia, the capital of liberia, has an average of 5,140 mm of rain per year. Between the rainforest and the deserts are immerse areas of tropical savanna. Savanna is prone to drought, with a mixture of rainy and dry season.