The continent of Africa can be conceptually subdivided into a number of regions.

One common approach envisions Africa geographically:

• North Africa lies north of the Sahara and runs along the Mediterranean coast.
• West Africa is the portion commonly known as the Bulge of Africa, excluding Northern Africa and the Maghreb.
• East Africa stretches from the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa to Mozambique, including Madagascar but excluding the southern and northern edges of the continent.
• Central Africa is the large mass at the center of Africa which either does not fall squarely into any other region or only partially does so.
• Southern Africa consists of the portion generally south of -10° latitude and the great rainforests of Congo.

Another common approach envisions Africa climatically:

• The Sahara Desert is the massive but largely empty region in North Africa that contains the world's largest desert.
• The Maghreb is a region of northwest Africa encompassing the coastlands and Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.
• The Sahel region covers a belt of grasslands south of the Sahara stretching from Senegal to Sudan.
• The Sudan region lies just below the Sahel but is slightly more moist and arable.
• The Guinea region is distinguished from the neighboring Sahel by its rainforests and runs along the Atlantic coast from Guinea to Nigeria.
• The Congo is the rainforest region of the Congo River Basin.
• The Great Lakes region is marked by a series of five lakes—Lake Albert, Lake Edward, Lake Kivu, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Victoria—that lie in and around the Great Rift Valley. It contains Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi as well as portions of Kenya, Tanzania, and the DRC.