Africa contains nearly every major landform type on Earth, from the world’s largest hot desert to its longest rift valley to massive volcanic peaks capped with glaciers near the equator. The continent’s geology spans billions of years, producing a landscape that ranges from sand dunes taller than skyscrapers to river deltas that feed millions of people. Here’s a closer look at the landforms that define Africa’s physical geography.
Mountains and Volcanic Peaks
Africa’s most famous peak, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, is also the continent’s highest point. Its Uhuru Peak stands at approximately 5,895 meters (19,341 feet) above sea level, though recent surveys have measured it slightly higher or lower depending on the method used. Kilimanjaro is a dormant stratovolcano, one of many volcanic landforms produced by hotspot activity and tectonic rifting across East Africa.
The continent has several major mountain ranges, each with a different geological origin. The Atlas Mountains stretch across Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in northwestern Africa, with the highest point at Mount Toubkal (13,671 feet). The Drakensberg Mountains run for over 700 miles through southern Africa and include Thabana Ntlenyana, the highest peak in the region at 11,424 feet. The Rwenzori Mountains, straddling the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are unusual because they’re neither volcanic nor formed by the typical collision of tectonic plates. Their highest point, Mount Stanley, reaches 16,762 feet and the range still holds six separate glaciers.
Mount Cameroon, on the west coast, is one of Africa’s most active volcanoes, with its most recent eruption occurring in 2000. Most of the continent’s volcanic activity is concentrated along the East African Rift or above hotspots in the underlying mantle.
The Great Rift Valley
The East African Rift System is one of the most dramatic geological features on the planet. Stretching roughly 4,000 miles (6,400 km) from the Red Sea down through Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and into Mozambique, it has been forming for about 30 million years as the African and Arabian tectonic plates slowly pull apart. This process is literally splitting the continent, and it has created a landscape of steep-walled valleys, volcanic vents, and deep lake basins.
The rift splits into two main branches. The Eastern Rift Valley runs through Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression (one of the lowest and hottest places on Earth) and continues south through Kenya, passing Lakes Turkana, Naivasha, and Magadi. The Western Rift Valley curves in a long arc that cradles some of Africa’s deepest lakes: Tanganyika, Kivu, Edward, Albert, and Malawi (also called Lake Nyasa). Lake Tanganyika, formed within this branch, is the second deepest lake in the world. The rift also produced some of Africa’s highest volcanic peaks and, at the other extreme, volcanic vents in Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression that sit below sea level.
Deserts and Sand Dunes
The Sahara dominates northern Africa as the world’s largest hot desert, covering roughly 3.3 million square miles (8.6 million square km). That area fluctuates as the desert expands and contracts over time. The Sahara isn’t a uniform sea of sand. It contains vast sand seas called ergs, rocky plateaus called hamadas, gravel plains, dry riverbeds, and isolated mountain ranges like the Ahaggar and Tibesti.
In the southwest, the Namib Desert stretches 1,200 miles along the Atlantic coast from Angola through Namibia into South Africa. It’s one of the oldest deserts on Earth, and its towering linear dunes are among its most striking features. In the southern half of the Namib, individual dunes run 10 to 20 miles long and reach heights of 200 to 800 feet. Near the coast the sand appears yellow-gray, shifting to deep brick red farther inland. The sand originates from the Orange River and other waterways that flow westward from the Great Escarpment but evaporate before reaching the ocean. Streams in the Namib typically end in salt pans or mud flats pressed against the dunes.
The Kalahari, often called a desert, is technically a semi-arid sandy savanna covering parts of Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. It receives more rainfall than a true desert and supports scrubby vegetation and wildlife, but its red sand surface and arid stretches give it a desert character.
Plateaus and Highlands
Much of Africa sits on broad, elevated plateaus, which is why the continent is sometimes called the “plateau continent.” The interior tends to be flat or gently rolling, then drops sharply at the edges through escarpments to narrow coastal plains.
The Ethiopian Highlands are the most extensive highland region in Africa, sometimes referred to as the “Roof of Africa.” The Simien Mountains within this plateau include Mount Ras Dejen, Ethiopia’s highest peak at 15,157 feet. The Eastern Highlands feature Mount Batu at 14,127 feet. These highlands are deeply cut by river gorges, creating dramatic valleys and steep terrain despite the generally elevated surface.
Southern Africa sits on a large plateau rimmed by the Great Escarpment, a continuous cliff face that separates the higher interior from the coastal lowlands. The Drakensberg Mountains form the most dramatic section of this escarpment. In East Africa, the Lake Victoria basin sits on another broad plateau, surrounded by higher ground on nearly all sides.
Rivers, Deltas, and Waterfalls
Africa’s rivers have carved significant landforms over millions of years. The Nile, the continent’s longest river, forms an arcuate (fan-shaped) delta where it empties into the Mediterranean Sea. This delta is built from nutrient-rich silt deposited over millennia, creating some of the most fertile agricultural land in North Africa. Wave action from the Mediterranean has shaped the delta’s outer edges. The Senegal River forms a similar wave-dominated delta where it meets the Atlantic.
Victoria Falls, on the Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, is the largest curtain of falling water in the world. The river is more than 2 kilometers wide at this point and drops into a series of basalt gorges. The falls span about 1,708 meters across, with depths ranging from 61 meters at the Devil’s Cataract to 108 meters at the deepest point. During peak flow, up to 500 million liters of water per minute pour over the edge, generating a mist visible from more than 20 kilometers away. The falls and the eight steep-sided gorges downstream were carved over geological time as the waterfall slowly eroded backward through layers of basalt rock.
Coastal Landforms and Lake Basins
Africa’s 30,000-kilometer coastline includes a range of landforms: sandy beaches along the West African coast, rocky headlands in South Africa, coral reefs along the East African shore and around Madagascar, and mangrove swamps in river estuaries from Senegal to Mozambique. The continent’s coastline is relatively smooth compared to Europe or Asia, with fewer natural harbors and peninsulas.
Inland, Africa’s lake basins are landforms in their own right. The lakes of the Western Rift Valley sit in deep, narrow troughs created by tectonic activity. Lake Chad in the Sahel region occupies a shallow basin that has dramatically shrunk over recent decades. Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa by surface area, fills a shallow depression between the two branches of the rift system rather than sitting inside the rift itself. These basins, along with the salt pans of the Kalahari and the seasonal wetlands of the Okavango Delta in Botswana (where a river fans out across flat land and simply evaporates instead of reaching the sea), round out one of the most geologically diverse continents on Earth.