Africa

The Arab migrations to the Maghreb involved successive waves of migration and settlement by Arab people in the Maghreb region of Africa, encompassing modern-day Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. The process took place over several centuries, lasting from the early 7th century to the 17th century. The Arab migrants hailed from the Middle East, particularly the Arabian Peninsula, with later groups arriving from the Levant and Iraq.

The influx of Arabs to the Maghreb began in the 7th century with the Arab conquest of the Maghreb, when Arab armies conquered the region as part of the early Muslim conquests. This initial wave of Arab migration was followed by subsequent periods of migration and settlement, notably during the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates and later Arab dynasties. However, the most significant wave of Arab migration occurred in the 11th century with the arrival of more Bedouin tribes from the Arabian Peninsula, such as Banu Hilal, Banu Sulaym, and Maqil. The last significant wave of Arab migration to the Maghreb was from Al-Andalus in the 17th century as a result of the Reconquista. These migrants established numerous Arab empires and dynasties in the Maghreb, such as the Aghlabids, Idrisids, Sulaymanids, Salihids, Fatimids, Saadians and 'Alawites.

Suez (UK: /ˈsuːɪz/, US: /ˌsuːˈɛz/, Arabic: السويس, romanized: as-Suways, pronounced [esseˈweːs]) is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It is the capital and largest city of the Suez Governorate. The modern city of Suez is a successor of the ancient city of Clysma, a major Red Sea port and a center of monasticism.

29°58′N 32°33′E / 29.967°N 32.550°E / 29.967; 32.550Railway lines and highways connect the city with Cairo, Port Said, and Ismailia. Suez has a petrochemical plant, and its oil refineries have pipelines carrying the finished product to Cairo. These are represented in the flag of the governorate: the blue background refers to the sea, the gear refers to Suez's status as an industrial governorate, and the flame refers to the petroleum firms of Suez. The city has three ports: the Suez Port (Port Tewfik), al-Adabiya, and al-Zaytiya, and extensive port facilities. Together, the three cities form the Suez metropolitan area, located mostly in Africa with a small portion in Asia.

The Strait of Gibraltar, also known as the Straits of Gibraltar, is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa.The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. Ferries cross between the two continents every day in as little as 35 minutes. The Strait's depth ranges between 300 and 900 metres (980 and 2,950 feet; 160 and 490 fathoms).

The strait lies in the territorial waters of Morocco, Spain, and the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, foreign vessels and aircraft have the freedom of navigation and overflight to cross the strait of Gibraltar in case of continuous transit.

In geography and cartography, hemispheres of Earth are any division of the globe into two equal halves (hemispheres), typically divided into northern and southern halves by the Equator and into western and eastern halves by the Prime meridian. Hemispheres can be divided geographically or culturally, or based on religion or prominent geographic features. Use of these divisions is applied when studying Earth's geographic distribution, cultural differences, and other geographic, demographic and socioeconomic features.

The Southern Hemisphere is the half (hemisphere) of Earth that is south of the equator. It contains all or part of five continents (the whole of Antarctica, the whole of Australia, about 90% of South America, about one-third of Africa, and some islands off the continental mainland of Asia) and four oceans (the whole Southern Ocean, the majority of the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic Ocean, and the South Pacific Ocean), as well as New Zealand and most of the Pacific Islands in Oceania. Its surface is 80.9% water, compared with 60.7% water in the Northern Hemisphere, and it contains 32.7% of Earth's land. More than 850 million people live in the Southern Hemisphere, representing around 10–12% of the total global human population.

Owing to the tilt of Earth's rotation relative to the Sun and the ecliptic plane, summer is from December to February (inclusive) and winter is from June to August (inclusive). September 22 or 23 is the vernal equinox and March 20 or 21 is the autumnal equinox. The South Pole is in the centre of the southern hemispherical region.

A department (French: département, Spanish: departamento) is an administrative or political division in several countries. Departments are the first-level divisions of 11 countries, nine in the Americas and two in Africa. An additional 10 countries use departments as second-level divisions, eight in Africa, and one each in the Americas and Europe.

As a territorial entity, "department" was first used by the French Revolutionary governments, apparently to emphasize that each territory was simply an administrative sub-division of the united sovereign nation. (The term "department", in other contexts, means an administrative sub-division of a larger organization.) This attempt to de-emphasize local political identity contrasts strongly with countries divided into "states" (implying local sovereignty).

Roman agriculture describes the farming practices of ancient Rome, during a period of over 1000 years. From humble beginnings, the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC) and the Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) expanded to rule much of Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East and thus comprised many agricultural environments of which the Mediterranean climate of dry, hot summers and cool, rainy winters was the most common. Within the Mediterranean area, a triad of crops were most important: grains, olives, and grapes.

The great majority of the people ruled by Rome were engaged in agriculture. From the beginning of small, largely self-sufficient landowners, rural society became dominated by latifundium, large estates owned by the wealthy and utilizing mostly slave labor. The growth in the urban population, especially of the city of Rome, required the development of commercial markets and long-distance trade in agricultural products, especially grain, to supply the people in the cities with food.

Human history or world history is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present. Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers. They migrated out of Africa during the Last Ice Age and had spread to every continent except Antarctica by the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago. Soon afterward, the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia brought the first systematic husbandry of plants and animals, and saw many humans transition from nomadic lives to sedentary existences as farmers in permanent settlements. The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting and writing.

These developments paved the way for the emergence of early civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Peru, the Indus Valley, and China, marking the beginning of the ancient period in the 4th millenium BCE. These civilizations enabled the establishment of regional empires and provided fertile ground for the advent of transformative philosophical and religious ideas. Hinduism originated during the late Bronze Age and was followed by the many seminal belief systems of the Axial Age: Buddhism, Confucianism, Greek philosophy, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. Christianity began later as an offshoot of Judaism. The subsequent post-classical period, from about 500 to 1500 CE, witnessed the rise of Islam and China's flourishing under the Tang and Song dynasties while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies increased. The political landscape was shaped by the rise and fall of major empires, such as the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic caliphates, and the Mongol Empire. This period's invention of gunpowder and the printing press greatly affected later history.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, romanized: Yä-ityopp'ya ortodoks täwahədo betä krəstiyan) is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates back to the Christianization of the Kingdom of Aksum in 330, and has between 38 million and 46 million adherents in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church claims 60 million members worldwide. It is a founding member of the World Council of Churches. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is in communion with the other Oriental Orthodox churches (the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church).

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church had been administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria from the first half of the 4th century until 1959, when it was granted autocephaly with its own patriarch by Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa. Located on the easternmost part of the African mainland, it is the fourth largest peninsula in the world. It is composed of Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Although not common, broader definitions include parts or all of Kenya and Sudan. It has been described as a region of geopolitical and strategic importance, since it is situated along the southern boundary of the Red Sea; extending hundreds of kilometres into the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel, and Indian Ocean, it also shares a maritime border with the Arabian Peninsula.