Chic African Culture Africa Factbook

Did you know?

1. No African country names begin with the letters F, H, I, J, O, P, Q, V, W, X, or Y.

2. Africa is surrounded by water but by definition Africa is not an island because Africa is a continent.

3. The Republic of the Congo is one of the most urbanized countries in Africa.

One Tribe Crossing the Gate of Grief Populated the World

Homo sapiens left their African homeland to colonize the world.
One African tribe crossing the Gate of Grief populated the entire world outside of Africa.

View from Mount Entoto. Entoto Mountain is the highest peak overlooking the city of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and has views of the city.

The entire human race outside Africa owes its existence to the survival of a single tribe of people who crossed the Gate of Grief around 90,000 years ago.


Humans were able to take advantage of falling sea levels due to climate change to cross into Arabia at the mouth of the Red Sea known as the Gate of Grief.


One African Tribe Crossing the Gate of Grief Populated the Entire World outside of Africa.

One African Tribe Crossing the Gate of Grief Populated the Entire World outside of Africa.

Today there is 18 miles between the coasts of Djibouti and Yemen across Bab-el-Mandeb also known as the Gate of Grief in Arabic. The Gate of Grief is between the Red Sea, one of the most saline bodies of water in the world and the Gulf of Aden an essential shipping waterway in the world economy.

The ancestral origin of humans was possibly located in southern Africa, near the South Africa-Namibia border. By using modern DNA Geneticists, trace the origins of Homo sapiens outside of Africa to a single tribe.

These ancestors managed to cross from the Horn of Africa and into Arabia through the Gate of Grief. There are 14 ancestral populations in Africa that are linked by ethnicity and shared cultural and language properties. One survived outside of the African continent and from there, just one tribe went on to inhabit the entire world.

There is more genetic diversity in Africa than anywhere else on earth. Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer, a geneticist at the school of anthropology at Oxford University said, "What you can see from the DNA of all non-Africans is that they all belong to one tiny African branch that came across the Red Sea. “If it was easy to get out of Africa, we would have seen multiple African lineages in the DNA of non-Africans but that there was only one successful exit suggests it must have been very tough to get out."

Did you know?
The Gate of Grief is also known as the Gate of Tears or Bab-El-Mandeb in Arabic.


African elder from the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

One African Tribe Crossing the Gate of Grief Populated the Entire World outside of Africa.


Together we build awareness that boost harmony, education, and success, below are more links to articles you will find thought provoking.

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  3. Worst serial killers recorded in history are women
  4. Indigenous healers and plants used
  5. Night running illness or magic
  6. What is back to Africa

Chic African Culture and The African Gourmet=

Africa is surrounded by water but is not an island, here are a few African Island facts.

Madagascar is the 4th large island in the world and is located in the Indian Ocean supporting a unique biology, about 90% of its plants and animals are found nowhere else on earth.

Composed of 155 islands, Seychelles is Africa's smallest country. By far the largest island is Mahe, home to about 90% of the population and the site of its capital city of Victoria.

Cabo Verde has a strategic location 310 miles or 500 km from the west coast of Africa near major north-south sea routes; important communications station; important sea and air refueling site.

Africa is surrounded by water but by definition Africa is not an island because Africa is a continent. Continents can not be considered islands because of their size and also by historic definition since many people who study geography define islands and continents as two different things.

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Being African in America I have grown up learning about different ethnic cultures. My father and mother are historians of African culture and history and their influence expanded my activities to several best-selling cookbooks, magazine columns, self-branded products, and a popular African culture and food blog.

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