7.Population of Africa.

Within Africa live over 600 million people. The average density of population is eight people to the square km. Most densely populated are the lands of the Nile Valley. Some regions in deserts are very thinly populated or unpopulated at all. Population of Africa today consists of native peoples and the settlers from Europe. It belongs to 3 races: europeoid, equatorial and mongoloid. There live

- the Arabs(who live mostly in Egypt and north Africa)

- the Negroes( who live in the west Africa and Sudan)

-the Bushmen (who occupy the Kalahari Desert , the Pygmies-the Congo river and the Hottentots- of the south –west of Africa)

-The Hamites (occupy Ethiopia and much of the Sahara Desert)

-The Bantus, negro people ( occupy much of central and southern Africa) There are also about five million white people in Africa. Most of them live along the north coasts of Africa and in the southern regions. There are many countries in Africa.

Egypt	Somalia	Sierra Leone	Angola
Tunisia	Uganda	Guinea	Mozambique
Morocco	Cameroon	Equatorial Guinea	Libya
Senegal	Benin	Gabon	Algeria
Niger	Ghana	Congo	Mauritania
Sudan	Liberia	Tanzania	Mali
Nigeria	Togo	Gambia	Rwanda
Burundi	Kenya	Zambia	Botswana
Chad	Ethiopia	Namibia	Swaziland
Lesotho	Malawi	Zimbabwe	Djibouti
The Central African Republic	The South African Republic	The Democratic Republic Congo	Madagascar

Plan to describe the country:

1. Geographical position. Capital.

2. Social system. Peoples.

3. Climate.

4. Animal life and vegetation.

5. Rivers and lakes.

6. Some interesting facts. Places of interest.

Home task: choose any country from the

list and make up a report according to the

plan.

Tanzania.

Tanzania is a country in the east of Africa. Its official name is the United Republic of Tanzania. The capital of the country is Dodoma. The total area of the country is more than 900 000 sq km (945 087 sq km). It borders on Kenya and Uganda in the north, on Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia in the south, on Congo, Burundi and Rwanda in the west. It is washed by the Indian Ocean in the east and has some islands in its waters.

The government rules the country. The head of the country is the president. It is divided into 25 regions. There are two state languages in Tanzania: English and Swahili. Nearly 99 % of the population consists of African people. Other people come from European countries.

The climate of Tanzania changes with the height over the sea level. On the coastlines, the climate is tropical, where the temperature is +27 ^o C all year round. Deep in the continent, it is warmer and drier. The rainfalls season lasts from December until May here. Many rainfalls are on the western coasts of Lake Victoria (over 2000 mm a year).

One can find rare forests, savannahs and wet equatorial forests in Tanzania. Many red trees grow here. Animal world in the country is very rich. Antelopes, zebras, elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffes, lions, leopards and different kinds of monkeys live here. The biggest lakes as Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyasa are situated in the country.

There are many places of interest in Tanzania. Among them is the National Museum in Dar es Salaam, the fortress ruins, picturesque caves Ambony and others. Many tourists visit safari parks and Kilimanjaro.

Australia.

1. Geographical Position.

Australia is the smallest continent in the world. Sometimes it is also called the biggest island. The total area of Australia is 9 million sq km. It lies wholly within the southern hemisphere and has only one country with the same name. There four extreme points in Australia:

North – cape York;

South – cape South –Eastern;

West – cape Steep Point;

East – cape Byron.

Australia is washed by the Indian Ocean in the west, by the Pacific Ocean in the south - east, by the Coral Sea in the north - east, by the Arafura Sea in the north and by the Tasmanian Sea in the south.

The coastlines of the continent are rather smooth with few peninsulas and bays. They are: the Cape York peninsula, the Arnhem Land peninsula and the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north; the Great Australian Bight in the south. The length of the coastlines without islands is 19.7 thousand km. Near Australia we can find some big islands as Tasmania, New Guinea and New Zealand. The closest continent is Eurasia. Along the eastern coast of Australia there is the Great Barrier Reef, which extends for 2000 km and is built by the coral polyp.

2.The Discovery of Australia.

Australia lies far from the other continents. For this reason, people didn’t know about it for a long time. At the beginning of the 17-th century Australia was discovered by the Dutch. In 1643 the Dutch sailor Abel Tasman (1603 - 1659) reached the unknown island. Later the island was called after him. He also discovered the western coasts of New Zealand and a lot of small islands in the Pacific Ocean. Tasman proved, that Australia was a separate continent.

The great English explorer and sailor James Cook (1728 - 1779) discovered the eastern coast of Australia in the 18-th century. During his voyage around the world he reached the new continent, proved that New Zealand was an island and discovered the Great Barrier Reef. Some time later, when gold was found in Australia, England announced the continent its colony.

Task: Complete the table.

Name of the explorer	Life years	Country	Contribution to the exploration of the continent
Abel Tasman
James Cook

3. Relief.

Australia is a low continent consisting mainly of plains and lowlands. The average height over the sea level is 215 m. There are only two mountain ranges there: the Great Dividing Range Mountains in the east and the Australian Alps in the west. There is one big plain in Australia - the Central Lowland. We can also find two deserts there – the Great Victoria Desert and the Great Sand Desert.

Australia is the only continent without active volcanoes. It is rich in coal, iron and polymetallic ores, gold and uranium.

4.Climate.

Australia lies close to the equator in the north and southern part of Tasmania lies within temperate zone. Most of the continent is influenced by trade winds. In the north monsoons blowing from the Indian Ocean, cause heavy rains. The extreme south-west and south receive rain mainly in winter when western winds are blowing from the Indian Ocean. In summer the temperature is very high in Australia. In winter the continent is cool. High in the mountains there is frost and snow in winter. All in all it is usually rather dry during the year.

Climatic Belts.

In the north of the continent the climate is subequatorial. In the centre there are 2 types of tropical climate: tropical dry in the west and centre and tropical wet in the east. In the south there are 3 types of subtropical climate: Mediterranean subtropical wet and subtropical continental. Island of Tasmania lies in temperate climatic belt.

(Laboratory Work).

Climatic belt	Geographical position. Relief.	Rainfalls	Winds	Winter t^o	Summer t^o
Subequatorial	The Cape-York and the Arnhem Land peninsulas; northern part of the continent.	2000-1000 mm a year	Equatorial air masses	+24^oC	+24^oC
Tropical
Subtropical
Temperate

5. Inland Waters.

Australia is rather a dry continent. There are not many rivers and lakes in Australia, many of which are drying. The biggest rivers are the Murray (2 570 km ) and its tributary the Darling (2 740 km). They begin in the Great Dividing Range and flow into the Indian Ocean. There are some lakes: the Eyre, the Mc Kai, the Carnegie, the Herdner and the Torrens. They are situated in the central and western parts of the continent but have salty water. The largest lake is Lake Eyre. It is fed by creeks that bring much water after downpours. In the dry season the lake grows shallow again and divided into pools.

The central arid part of Australia is very rich in underground water. Deep artesian wells are situated here. This water is salty that is why is used only in industry and agriculture.

6. Natural Zones.

Geographical position	Natural Zone
	Monsoon forests	Savannahs and rare forests	Deserts and semi deserts
	Eastern coast of the continent	Northern and eastern part of the continent	Central and western part of the continent
Climatic belt	Subequatorial, tropical, subtropical	Subequatorial, tropical	tropical
Temperature	+16^o+24^o in summer, +8^o+24^o in winter	+24^o+32^o in summer, +8^o+24^o in winter	+24^o+32^oin summer, +8^o+16^o in winter
Rainfalls	1000-2000 mm a year	250-1000 mm a year	250-500 mm a year
Soils	Red-yellow	Reddish-brown and red ferro-aluminum	Sends, desert soils
Vegetation	Eucalyptus, acacia, tree fern	Grass, eucalyptus, bottle-tree	eucalyptus, prickly shrubs, acacia
Animals	Duckbill, echidna, koala, wombat, parrot, bat	Kangaroo, wild dog Dingo, emu	Echidna, kangaroo, emu, lizard, snake