Africa

Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and southwest. It has a population of around 5.5 million and covers an area of 43,000 square miles (111,369 km). The official language is English. Over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural diversity. The capital and largest city is Monrovia.

Liberia began in the early 19th century as a project of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which believed that black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States. Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born African Americans, along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia. Gradually developing an Americo-Liberian identity, the settlers carried their culture and tradition with them while colonizing the indigenous population. Led by the Americo-Liberians, Liberia declared independence on July 26, 1847, which the U.S. did not recognize until February 5, 1862.

Galagos /ɡəˈleɪɡoʊz/, also known as bush babies or nagapies (meaning "night monkeys" in Afrikaans), are small nocturnal primates native to continental, sub-Sahara Africa, and make up the family Galagidae (also sometimes called Galagonidae). They are considered a sister group of the Lorisidae.

According to some accounts, the name "bush baby" comes from either the animal's cries or its appearance. The Ghanaian name aposor is given to them because of their firm grip on branches.

Lorisidae (or sometimes Loridae) is a family of strepsirrhine primates. The lorisids are all slim arboreal animals and comprise the lorises, pottos, and angwantibos. Lorisids live in tropical, central Africa as well as in south and southeast Asia.

Baboons are primates comprising the genus Papio, one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys, in the family Cercopithecidae. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma baboon. Each species is native to one of six areas of Africa and the hamadryas baboon is also native to part of the Arabian Peninsula. Baboons are among the largest non-hominoid primates and have existed for at least two million years.

Baboons vary in size and weight depending on the species. The smallest, the Kinda baboon, is 50 cm (20 in) in length and weighs only 14 kg (31 lb), while the largest, the chacma baboon, is up to 120 cm (47 in) in length and weighs 40 kg (88 lb). All baboons have long, dog-like muzzles, heavy, powerful jaws with sharp canine teeth, close-set eyes, thick fur except on their muzzles, short tails, and nerveless, hairless pads of skin on their protruding buttocks called ischial callosities that provide for sitting comfort. Male hamadryas baboons have large white manes. Baboons exhibit sexual dimorphism in size, colour and/or canine teeth development.

A crocodile (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodile is a large, semiaquatic reptile that lives throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term "crocodile" is sometimes used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans (both members of the family Alligatoridae), the gharial and false gharial (both members of the family Gavialidae) as well as other extinct taxa.

Crocodile size, morphology, behaviour and ecology differ among species. However, they have many similarities in these areas as well. All crocodiles are semiaquatic and tend to congregate in freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes, wetlands and sometimes in brackish water and saltwater. They are carnivorous animals, feeding mostly on vertebrates such as fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, and sometimes on invertebrates such as molluscs and crustaceans, depending on species and age. All crocodiles are tropical species that, unlike alligators, are very sensitive to cold. Many species are at the risk of extinction, some being classified as critically endangered.

Acer is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae. There are approximately 132 species, most of which are native to Asia, with a number also appearing in Europe, northern Africa, and North America. Only one species, Acer laurinum, extends to the Southern Hemisphere. The type species of the genus is the sycamore maple Acer pseudoplatanus, one of the most common maple species in Europe. Most maples usually have easily identifiable palmate leaves (with a few exceptions, such as Acer carpinifolium, Acer laurinum, and Acer negundo) and all share distinctive winged fruits. The closest relative of the maples is the small east Asian genus Dipteronia, followed by the more widespread genus Aesculus (buckeyes and horse-chestnuts). Maple syrup is made from the sap of some maple species. It is one of the most common genera of trees in Asia. Many maple species are grown in gardens where they are valued for their autumn colour and often decorative foliage, some also for their attractive flowers, fruit, or bark.

Jaggery is a traditional non-centrifugal cane sugar consumed in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, North America, Central America, Brazil and Africa. It is a concentrated product of cane juice and often date or palm sap without separation of the molasses and crystals, and can vary from golden brown to dark brown in colour. It contains up to 50% sucrose, up to 20% invert sugars, and up to 20% moisture, with the remainder made up of other insoluble matter, such as wood ash, proteins, and bagasse fibres. Jaggery is very similar to muscovado, an important sweetener in Portuguese, British and French cuisine.

A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (Africa; Jupiter; Sarah; Microsoft) as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (continent, planet, person, corporation) and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a continent, another planet, these persons, our corporation). Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique (the Hendersons, the Everglades, the Azores, the Pleiades). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the Mozart experience; his Azores adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no Pavarotti; a few would-be Napoleons). The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention.

A distinction is normally made in current linguistics between proper nouns and proper names. By this strict distinction, because the term noun is used for a class of single words (tree, beauty), only single-word proper names are proper nouns: Peter and Africa are both proper names and proper nouns; but Peter the Great and South Africa, while they are proper names, are not proper nouns. The term common name is not much used to contrast with proper name, but some linguists have used it for that purpose. While proper names are sometimes called simply names, this term is often used more broadly: "An earlier name for tungsten was wolfram." Words derived from proper names are occasionally called proper adjectives (or proper adverbs, and so on), but not in mainstream linguistic theory. Not every noun phrase that refers to a unique entity is a proper name. For example, chastity is a common noun even though chastity is considered a unique abstract entity (constrasted with the personal name Chastity, which is a proper name).

Ibadism (Arabic: الإباضية, romanized: al-ʾIbāḍiyya, Arabic pronunciation: [alʔibaːˈdˤijja]) is a branch of Islam whose roots go back to the Kharijite secession from the fourth Caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib. It is a moderate subsect that has persisted and led to the creation of Ibadi communities in various areas in the Middle East and Africa.

The followers of the Ibadi sect are known as the Ibadis or, as they call themselves, The People of Truth and Integrity (Arabic: أهل الحقّ والاستقامة). Contemporary Ibadis may object to being classified as Kharijites. They are much less numerous than the two largest Muslim denominations: Sunnis—who account for 85–90 percent of the Muslim world—and Shias.

Cape Agulhas (/əˈɡʊljəs/; Portuguese: Cabo das Agulhas [ˈkaβu ðɐz ɐˈɣuʎɐʃ], "Cape of Needles") is a rocky headland in Western Cape, South Africa. It is the geographic southern tip of Africa and the beginning of the traditional dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian oceans according to the International Hydrographic Organization. It is approximately half a degree of latitude, or 55 kilometres (34 mi), farther south than the Cape of Good Hope.

Historically, the cape has been known to sailors as a major hazard on the traditional clipper route. It is sometimes regarded as one of the great capes. It was most commonly known in English as Cape L'Agulhas until the 20th century. The town of L'Agulhas is near the cape.