Regions

Africa may be divided into three major regions: the Northern Plateau, the Central and Southern Plateau, and the Eastern Highlands. In general, elevations increase across the continent from northwest to southeast, the average being about 560 m (about 1900 ft). Low-lying coastal strips, with the exception of the Mediterranean coast and the Guinea coast, are generally narrow and rise sharply to the plateau.

Northern Plateau

The outstanding feature of the Northern Plateau is the Sahara, which occupies more than one-quarter of Africa. At the fringes of the Northern Plateau are several mountainous regions. To the northwest lie the Atlas Mountains, a chain of rugged peaks linked by high plateaus, which extend from Morocco into Tunisia. Other prominent uplands are the Fouta Djallon (Futa Jallon), on the southwest, and the Adamawa Plateau and the Cameroon mountain range, on the south. The Lake Chad Basin is situated in the approximate center of the Northern Plateau.

Central and Southern Plateau

The Central and Southern Plateau is considerably higher than the Northern Plateau and includes west central and southern Africa. It contains several major depressions, notably the Congo River Basin and the Kalahari Desert. Other features south of this plateau, which averages more than 900 m (about 3000 ft) in elevation, are the Drakensberg Mountains, running some 1100 km (about 700 mi) along the southeastern coast; and, in the extreme south, the High Veld, an arid plateau covering much of South Africa.

The Eastern Highlands

The Eastern Highlands, the highest portion of the continent, lie near the eastern coast, extending from the Red Sea south to the Zambezi River. The region has an average elevation of more than 1500 m (about 5000 ft), although in the Ethiopian Plateau it rises in stages to about 3000 m (about 10,000 ft). Ras Dashen (4,620 m/15,158 ft) in northern Ethiopia is the highest peak of the plateau. South of the Ethiopian Plateau are a number of towering volcanic peaks, including Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, and Mount Elgon. A distinctive topographical feature of the Eastern Highlands is the Great Rift Valley, a vast geologic fault system that traverses the region in a northern to southern direction. West of the Great Rift Valley is the Ruwenzori Range, which attains a maximum elevation of 5119 m (16,795 ft). The topography of the island of Madagascar features a rugged central highland extending in a generally northern-southern direction near the eastern coast.