African Plate in the context of "Latakia Ridge"

This is a list of sovereign states and dependent territories in Africa. It includes fully recognised states, states with limited or zero recognition, and dependent territories of both African and non-African states. It lists 56 sovereign states (54 of which are member states of the United Nations), two non-sovereign (dependent) territories of non-African sovereign states, and nine sub-national regions of non-African sovereign states. Malta and parts of France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are located on the African continental plate, some considerably closer to the African mainland than the European mainland but, politically, are generally considered to be European by convention. Egypt, although extending into Asia through the Sinai Peninsula, is considered an African state.

The most isolated major summits of Europe by topographic isolation are located in the European continent and its tectonic and geographic boundaries. This includes major mountain peaks of fold and fault-block mountains, and also volcanoes, located not only in the European Mainland, but also those located on lands and islands on the limits of Europe, like the North Atlantic Ocean islands of the Azores and Iceland, the Arctic Ocean islands of Jan Mayen, Svalbard archipelago and Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the Mediterranean island of Sicily, the Ural Mountains, and Mount Elbrus. The last mentioned is HP of the transboundary Caucasus Mountains and Greater Caucasus region, but as a geologically separate stratovolcano, it is entirely laying in Europe (and Russia), 20 km (12 mi) north of the main ridge of the Greater Caucasus, considered as the one that is forming the limits of Europe. The definition excludes island clearly lying on the African Plate and outside the geographic limits of Europe, like the Canaries and Madeira. The active volcano of Mount Etna is somehow on, or just outside the boundaries of the Eurasian Plate, resting on the subduction boundary where the African tectonic plate is being pushed under the Eurasian plate, but geographically is part of Europe, and is also included in the Top 10 lists.

Mount Etna, or simply Etna, is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina and Catania. It is located above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is one of the tallest active volcanoes in Europe, and the tallest peak in Italy south of the Alps with a current height (September 2024) of 3,403 m (11,165 ft), though this varies with summit eruptions. For instance, in 2021 the southeastern crater reached a height of 3,357 m (11,014 ft), but was then surpassed by the Voragine crater after the summer 2024 eruptions.

Etna covers an area of 1,190 km (459 sq mi) with a basal circumference of 140 km (87 miles). This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. Only Mount Teide on Tenerife in the Canary Islands surpasses it in the whole of the European–North-African region west of the Black Sea.

Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. Ethiopia covers a land area of 1,104,300 square kilometres (426,400 sq mi). As of 2025, it has around 135 million inhabitants, making it the 14-most populous country. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates.

Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia. In 980 BC, the Kingdom of D'mt extended its realm over Eritrea and the northern region of Ethiopia, while the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region for 900 years. Christianity was embraced by the kingdom in 330, and Islam arrived by the first Hijra in 615. After the collapse of Aksum in 960, the Zagwe dynasty ruled the north-central parts of Ethiopia until being overthrown by Yekuno Amlak in 1270, inaugurating the Ethiopian Empire and the Solomonic dynasty, claimed descent from the biblical Solomon and Queen of Sheba under their son Menelik I. By the 14th century, the empire had grown in prestige through territorial expansion and fighting against adjacent territories; most notably, the Ethiopian–Adal War (1529–1543) contributed to fragmentation of the empire, which ultimately fell under a decentralization known as Zemene Mesafint in the mid-18th century. Emperor Tewodros II ended Zemene Mesafint at the beginning of his reign in 1855, marking the reunification and modernization of Ethiopia.

Madeira, officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira, is an autonomous region of Portugal, in the Atlantic Ocean about 805 km (500 miles) southwest of mainland Portugal. Together with the Azores, it is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal and a special territory of the European Union. It is the southernmost point and region of Portugal.

Madeira is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under 400 kilometres (250 mi) north of the Canary Islands, Spain, 520 kilometres (320 mi) west of Morocco and 805 kilometres (500 mi) southwest of mainland Portugal. Madeira sits on the African Tectonic Plate, but is culturally, politically and ethnically associated with Europe, with its population predominantly descended from Portuguese settlers. Its population was 251,060 in 2021. The capital of Madeira is Funchal, on the main island's south coast.

The Cyprus Arc is a curved plate boundary zone in the Eastern Mediterranean extending from the eastern edge of the Hellenic arc to the triple junction of the Anatolian Plate, Arabian Plate and African Plate. Unlike simpler plate margins, the Cyprus Arc accommodates simultaneous compression, extension and strike-slip movements along different segments, reflecting the complex interaction of three major plates. The arc is linked into the Latakia Ridge to the west via the East Anatolian Fault (EAF).

The volcanism of Italy is due chiefly to the presence, a short distance to the south, of the boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate. Italy is a volcanically active country, containing the only active volcanoes in mainland Europe (while volcanic islands are also present in Greece, in the volcanic arc of the southern Aegean). The lava erupted by Italy's volcanoes is thought to result from the subduction and melting of one plate below another.

Three main clusters of volcanism exist: a line of volcanic centres running northwest along the central part of the Italian mainland (see: Campanian volcanic arc); a cluster northeast of Sicily in the Aeolian Islands; and a cluster southwest of Sicily around the island of Pantelleria, in the Mediterranean's Strait of Sicily. Sardinia has had a totally separate geological history from that of the rest of Italy, where several cycles of volcanic activity occurred, the last of which ended at the beginning of the Pleistocene, but currently hosts only permanently extinct volcanoes.

The Mediterranean Ridge is a wide ridge in the bed of the Mediterranean Sea, running along a rough quarter circle from Calabria, south of Crete, to the southwest corner of Turkey.

It is an accretionary wedge caused by the African Plate subducting under the Eurasian and Anatolian plates. As the African Plate moves slowly north-northeastward, the sedimentary rocks covering the Mediterranean seafloor are being affected by active shortening, involving both thrust faulting and folding, lifting them up and forming the ridge.