Africa is approximately three times the size of Europe, 2/3 the size of Asia, 5/4 the size of North America and so forth. Obviously it's a large place but so is every continent.
Edit: This isn't to take away from the point that historically, the size, importance, history and so forth of Africa have been neglected. But it seems like this should be dealt with more holistically than the infographic size comparison approach.
Africa wouldn't still be recovering from the effects of colonialism if it weren't as historically important as it was.
For a second there I thought you were talking about hn.
If you're comparing continents, Asia is larger than Africa, and North America is nearly as large.
If you're comparing countries, the largest African country is Algeria, which ranks 10th.
However, you're missing a bit part of it. Americans don't understand governance models very well. Provinces are to counties and states are to small countries. What does federal map to? Mental model says next one up - continent.
I'd argue its not precise to consider Americans dumb, just inexperienced outside our bubble.
Indeed!
Funny, because others replying to my comment seemed to be similarly inexperienced outside their well-educated Silicon Valley / Ivy League bubble… :^)
And the ratio of people mentioning "Africa" rather than a particular nation in Africa is much high than the ratio of other continents being mentioned rather than their constituent countries.
Also, "African American" is a common term; "European Americans" not so much.
None of it implies that we “think Africa is a country”.
> “African American”
Asian-American is a widely used term, too.
Edit to add: sometimes one important person’s error gets conflated with the assumed views of many.
Rumors, not facts.
One candidate, not "a lot of Americans."
Irony is making sweeping generalizations while ostensibly pushing back on generalizations.
“ One of the most famous blunders made by former U.S. President George W. Bush was, “Africa is a nation that suffers from terrible disease.” President Bush, like many others, misconstrued the fact that Africa is not a country, but a continent.”
https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2018/11/23/africa-not-a-co...
But surely, it must be a coincidence! :)
Coincidence of what and what? Bush is well known for his blunders, so it is not such a coincidence that this one is of his authorship. Or did you mean that it was American president who blundered this? How many other presidents had a chance to blunder in such a way that you'd notice it? It is an important question, because blunders of American presidents are carried to every corner of the world, while blunders of a president of Botswana probably isn't.
> A candidate and a president
I pray, America is a democratic country, anyone could become a president. ;)
Should we conclude that he was referring to homosexual Nazis with a slur? Or did he mis-speak.
GWB was a rich source of flubs and boners. Deciding that this one means Americans think Africa is a country is a big ol' [citation needed].
Calculus doesn't refer to categories of calculations, it refers to infinitesimal calculus.
America doesn't refer to the combination of both South and North America, it refers to a specific country in North America called the "United States of America".
In your case they simply may have decided to just drop the "South" from "South Africa".
I don't understand the logic behind these abbreviations so I will never understand why someone would refer to a single African country by "Africa" as a whole, but apparently that is what some Americans do or at least it sounds believable when you consider the 3 examples I have mentioned above.