Fact about East Africa.

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the Africa continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 20 territories constitute Eastern Africa. Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi in Central East Africa, are also included in the Africa Great Lakes region and are members of the East Africa Community (EAC).

Burundi and Rwanda are sometimes considered to be part of Central Africa. Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia collectively known as the Horn of Africa. Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles-Smal island nations in the Indian Ocean. Reunion and Mayotte- French overseas territories also in the Indian Ocean. Mozambique and Madagascar- often considered part of Southern Africa, on the eastern side of the sub-continent.

Madagascar has a close cultural tie to the Southeast Asia and the Islands of the Indian Ocean. Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are often also included in Southern Africa, and formerly of the Central African Federation.

Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan that is newly independent from Sudan are collectively part of the Nile Valley. It is situated in the northeastern portion of the continent, and is often included in Northern Africa.

Also, members of the common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) free trade area. Due to colonial territories of the British East Africa Protectorate and German East Africa, the term East Africa is often (especially in the English Language) used to specifically refer to the area now comprising the three countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

However, this has never been the convention in many other languages, where the term generally had a wider, strictly geographic context and therefore typical included Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

Some parts of East Africa have been renounced for their concentrations of wild animals, such as the “Big Five” of “Elephant, Buffalo, Lion, Leopard and black Rhinoceros through populations have been declining under increased stress in recent times, particularly the rhino and elephant.

The geography of East Africa is often stunning and scenic. It is shaped by global plate tectonic forces that have created the East African Rift; East Africa is the site of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, the two tallest peaks in Africa. It also includes the World’s second largest fresh water lake “Lake Victoria”, and the World’s second deepest lake “Lake Tanganyika”.

The climate of East Africa is rather a typical of equatorial regions. It is because of a combination of the region’s generally high altitude and the rain shadow, of the westerly monsoon winds created by the Rwenzori Mountains and Ethiopia Highlands, East Africa is surprisingly cool and dry for its latitude.

Infact, on the coast of Somaliland and puntland many years can go by without any rain whatsoever. Most of the rain falls in two distinct wet seasons, one centered on April and the other in October or November.  

This is usually attributed to the passage of the Intertropical convergence zone across the region in those months, but it may also be analogous to the autumn monsoon rains of parts of Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the Brazilian Nordeste.

The rainfall in East Africa is influenced by EI Nino events, which tend to increase rainfall except in the Northern and Western parts of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands, where they produce drought and poor Nile floods.

The temperatures in East Africa, except on the hot and generally humid coastal belt are moderate, with maxima of around 25°C (77°F) and minima of 15°C (59°F) at an altitude of 1,500 meters (4,921ft). At altitudes of above 2,500meters (8,202ft), frosts are common during the dry season and maxima typically about 21°C (70°F) or less.