Africa is the hottest continent on Earth. It is located almost symmetrically on both sides of the equator
This continent takes the second place in area and height above sea level (after Asia) and the fourth place in population.
There is every reason to believe that Africa was the “cradle of man”, who settled out of its equatorial forests on other continents.
Africa lies between two oceans: the Atlantic in the west, the Indian in the east, closely adjoining with Europe in the North and Asia in the North-East.
African continent is made up of ancient (Precambrian) rocks, bulging in various places on the surface in the form of sheets, between which there are large cavities filled with younger sediments.
Mining industry is the foundation of African industry.
The manufacturing industry is not developed well enough and has a poorly differentiated industrial structure.
It is characterized by production, primary processing of raw materials, as well as some light industry branches.
The manufacturing industry in the region is characterized by high spatial concentration. Most of its centers are located in coastal areas.
Some countries, which are not landlocked, as well as in some sub-Saharan Africa, have rarely more than two or three centers with a relatively well-developed manufacturing industry.
Usually they are confined to the mining and places of processing of agricultural raw materials. The manufacturing industry is also located in the centers of consumption in a considerable distance from extraction of raw materials (wood processing, aluminum smelting, metal forming, processing of oil and gas).
Industrial cores of Africa are South Africa, the northern parts of the continent and the industrial zone in northern Egypt.
Industry of South Africa, one of the developed countries in Africa, works in the market of developed countries, has little to do with the neighboring African countries. Egypt, the largest center for the textile industry, has closer ties with the economies of its neighbors.
Some manufacturing industries of various African countries have global significance.
Such is, for example, chemical industry of Morocco, processing phosphate rock, which then enter the European fertilizer market as intermediates.
A group of smelters in the African copper belt (Cato Rhodesia), oil refining in Algeria, Libya and Egypt have great global importance.
Enterprises of new branches, new to Africa (ferrous metallurgy, machine building, chemical and textile industries), are usually placed where the industrial infrastructure has already existed.
