Vocabulary.

Total – общий

Hemisphere - полушарие

Continent - материк

Separate - отдельный

Layer - слой

Oceanic bottom – океаническое дно

Earth Crust – земная кора

Volcano - вулкан

Earthquake - землетрясение

Frequent - частый

Seismic belt – сейсмический пояс

Occupy – занимать

Stretch – протянуться

Surface – поверхность

Cavity – впадина

Roughness – неровность

Origin –происхождение

Lithosphere

Atmosphere

Peculiarity – особенность

Disposition – расположение

Sedimentary – осадочный

Climate – климат

Temperature

Rainfalls – осадки

Pressure – давление

Influence – влиять

Oceanic currents – океанические течения

Circulation – циркуляция

Distribution – распределение

Predominant – преобладающий

Trade winds – пассаты

Monsoons – муссоны

Transitional – переходный

Equatorial – экваториальный

Tropical – тропический

Temperate – умеренный

Relief – рельеф

Vegetation – растительность

Evaporation – испарение

Moisture – влага

There are 6 continents on the Earth. They are: Africa , Australia, Antarctica, North America, South America, Eurasia.

The description of the geographical position of the continent

1. Geographical position( equator, tropics, Greenwich meridian)

2. Extreme points of the continent

3. Oceans, seas, gulfs, bays around the continent

4. Peninsulas, inlands near the continent

5. Climatic belts

6. The nearest continents

7. Who explored the continent

Africa.

1.Geographical Position.

Africa is divided by the equator almost in the middle and lies in the northern and southern hemispheres between the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn in the Torrid Zone. It is rather a big continent. The total area of Africa is 30.3 million sq km. The average height over the sea level is 750 m. There are four extreme points in Africa:

North – cape El-Abyard;

South – cape Igolny;

East – cape Hafun;

West – cape Almadi.

Africa is washed by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by the Indian Ocean in the east, by the Mediterranean Sea in the north and by the Red Sea in the north - east. The Strait of Gibraltar separates it from Europe and the Sues Canal (160 km long) – from Asia. The coastlines are unbroken: there is only one big peninsula – Somaliland, and only one big gulf – the Gulf of Guinea. The total length of the coastlines without islands is 30.5 thousand km. The largest island near Africa is Madagascar.

2.The Discovery of Africa.

Long ago Africa attracted the attention of people from Europe and Asia. The first were ancient Greeks who tried to explore the continent and settled on the northern coasts of it. Ancient Egyptians also explored Africa and reached Somaliland, but they couldn’t enter the central part of the continent because of the deserts.

In the 15-th century the Portuguese sailors went around the continent in search of the route to India. In 1498 Vasco da Gama (1460 -1524) and his sailors reached the southern coasts of Africa. Since the 16-th century the Europeans began to take away slaves from Africa.

In the middle of the 19-th century the English traveler David Livingstone (1813 - 1873) explored the Zambezi River. He discovered the great waterfall called Victoria. He described his trips to the Congo River, Lake Nyasa and others. He wanted to find the source of the Nile but he died of an unknown tropical disease.

Almost at the end of the 19-th century an American journalist Henry Stanley (1842 – 1904) came to Africa. He swam along the river Congo three years and watched the flow of it. Then he explored Lake Victoria and found the beginning of the Nile. He also explored Lake Tanganyika and some cavities on the River Congo.

One of the Russian explorers of Africa was Vasily Younker (1840 - 1892). He travelled to the central and eastern parts of the continent in the second half of the 19-th century. He explored the Nile and the Congo and found a lot of interesting facts about the nature and the life of people in these parts of the continent.

Task: Complete the table.

Name of the explorer	Life years	Country	Contribution to the exploration of the continent
Ancient Greeks
Ancient Egyptians
Vasco da Gama
David Livingstone
Henry Stanley
Vasily Younker

3.Relief.

The relief of the continent is not complicated. We can find only mountain ranges and highlands there. There are the Atlas Mountains in the north-west of the continent and the Drakensberg Mountains in the south - east of it. In the middle of the continent, there are the Abyssinian Highlands and the East-African Highlands. The highest mountain in Africa is an active volcano - Kilimanjaro (5 876 m.). There are four deserts in Africa: the Sahara Desert, the Libyan Desert, the Namib Desert and the Kalahari Desert.

Africa is rich in minerals. It has vast deposits of iron ore, copper, tin, uranium, gold and diamonds {minerals of igneous origin). Minerals of sedimentary origin are oil, gas, coal, salt, manganese and phosphorites.

4.Climate.

Africa lies within the zone, where the sun is high above the horizon throughout the year. That is why Africa’s average temperature is above 20^oC. The extreme north and south are the coolest parts having a subtropical climate. The circulation of atmosphere influences the rainfalls. Equatorial regions get many rains. In the north and south, there are little rains because the belts of high atmospheric pressure are situated there. Temperate air masses and western winds bring rains to those regions in winter. Summer is dry because tropical air masses and trade winds influence it. Trade winds predominate in Africa. The relief also influences the climate greatly.

Climatic belts

Since the equator crosses Africa in the middle all the climatic belts, but the equatorial are met twice.

The equatorial climatic belt is situated in the Congo basin and the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. The equatorial air masses make the climate hot and wet. It is a region of low pressure and the temperature are about +24,+28C all year round. The sky is usually clear in the morning. By midday it is covered with clouds and then comes a heavy downpour often followed by a thunder shower. By the evening the sky is clear again.

North and south of the equator extend subequatorial climatic belts. The t* is high, but nearly all the rain falls in summer. So these regions have 2 distinct climatic periods: a wet period in summer and a dry period in winter.

North and south of the subequatorial climatic belts extend 2 tropical belts. The dry tropical air masses and trade winds blow there. The part of Africa lying in the northern hemisphere stretches the vast Sahara desert. The ground becomes very hot in the daytime; the t*in summer sometimes reaches 50-60*C in the shade. At night, on the other hand, it is cold.

In the south deserts occupy a smaller area, as the continent is much narrower there. The Namib Desert and the Kalahari Desert are situated there.

The tropical wet climate is in the eastern regions of the island Madagascar and the Drakenberg Mountains.

Along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the north of Africa and in the extreme south the climate is subtropical. In the north there is the Mediterranean climate with hot and dry summer and mild and wet winter. In the south there is the subtropical climate where the rain falls all year round, but mostly in summer.

Climatic Belts.

( Laboratory Work.)

Climatic belt	Geographical position. Relief.	Rainfalls	Winds	Winter t^o	Summer t^o
Equatorial	The Congo basing; coastlines of the Gulf of Guinea.	2000-1000 mm a year	Equatorial air masses	+24^oC	+24^oC
Subequatorial
Tropical
Subtropical

5.Inland Waters.

The network of rivers depends on relief, temperature and rainfalls. African rivers are mainly rain-fed and overflow in the rainy season. Most rivers carry their waters into the Atlantic Ocean. There are some big rivers: the Nile (6 671 km), the Congo (4 320 km), the Niger (4 160 km), the Zambezi (2 660 km).

The Nile is the biggest river in the world. It begins in the mountains of East Africa, flows north and falls into the Mediterranean Sea.

The second largest river in Africa is the Congo. It begins in the East-African Highlands, flows west and falls into the Atlantic Ocean.

The waters of the Niger flow into the Gulf of Guinea. The river rises in the mountains and has many waterfalls.

The Zambezi River flows east and falls into the Indian Ocean. It forms a great waterfall called the Victoria Falls.

The lakes are situated in the centre of the continent. The deepest is Lake Tanganyika (1 435 m). It is 650 km long and 80 km wide. The largest in area is Lake Victoria (80 m deep). In the south of the Sahara Desert, there is Lake Chad (4-7 m deep).It is not deep, but often changes its shape, depending on the amount of rain. There are two more lakes: Lake Nyasa (706 m deep) and Lake Aswan.

6.Natural Zones

Vast territories of the dry land with similar natural complexes are formed under the influence of the combination of warmth and moisture is called natural zones.

Geographical position	Natural Zone
	Wet equatorial forests	Savannahs and rare forests	Deserts and semi deserts	Tough evergreen forests
	The basin of the river Congo; the coastlines of the Gulf of Guinea.	The basin of the river Zambezi; Somaliland; the upper Nile basin; south to the Sahara Desert.	North of the continent; the coastlines of the Atlantic Ocean.	Extreme south - west and north –west.
Climatic belt	equatorial	subequatorial and tropical	tropical	subtropical
Temperature	+25^o+27^o all year round	+16^o+32^o in winter, +16^o+24^o in summer	+24^o+32^oin summer, +8^o+16^o in winter	+8^o+16^oin winter, +16^o+24^o in summer
Rainfalls	1000-3000 mm a year	250-1000 mm a year	100 mm a year	250-1000 mm a year
Soils	Red-yellow ferro- aluminum	Reddish-brown and red ferro-aluminum	Sends, desert soils	brown
Vegetation	ficus, tree-fern, fern, coffee-tree, banana palm, liana, moss	Grass, baobab, acacia, aloe, Mimosa, palms	Thorny shrubs, camel thorn, Tough grass	Tough leaved shrubs, tulip, silver- tree, geranium
Animals	Chimpanzee, ape, marmoset, snakes gorilla, baboon, hippopotamus, elephant, leopard, crocodile	Zebra, elephant, hippopotamus, antelope, giraffe, lion, hyena, jackal, crocodile, ostrich, flamingo, marabou	Lizard, snake, scorpion, hyena, antelope, lion	Jackal, macaque.