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CAPE VERDE, one of the world’s smallest nations, is situated in the Atlantic Ocean, about 640 kilometers or 400 miles northwest of Senegal. It consists of ten islands and five islets, and there is an active volcano on Fogo, one of the islands. The islands are divided into the Windward group and the Leeward group.
CAMEROON is a triangular-shaped republic of diverse landscapes in west-central Africa. It stretches from Lake Chad at its apex to the northern borders of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Congo in the south. Cameroon is a country of varied topography and natural vegetation. The far north is a region of savannah plain with marshland near the shores of Lake Chad. Eastwards, the land becomes drier, grading towards the Sahel grasslands in Chad. In the west, a belt of volcanic mountains and bamboo forests spill over the border with Nigeria. Further south, the savannah plains rise gradually to form the extensive Adamawa Plateau (Massif de I’Adoumaoua), partly covered in woodland. In the south, the coastal plain is covered with tropical rainforests. In the West, out of this rises a group of high volcanic mountains, including the sporadically active Mount Cameroon (4,100 meters or 1,250 feet).
The BAHAMAS consists of an archipelago of 700 islands located in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida’s southeast coast. The largest island is Andros (4,144 square kilometers or 1,600 square miles), but most islanders live on Grand Bahama or New Providence, where the capital, Nassau, lies. Winters in the Bahamas are mild and summers warm. The most rain falls in May, June, September, and October, and thunderstorms are frequent in summer. The islands are also subject to hurricanes and other tropical storms.
CAMBODIA, formerly called Kampuchea, is a southeast Asian state bounded by Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, and its southern coast lies on the Gulf of Thailand. The country was devastated by its involvement in the Vietnam War (1960-75), followed by the brutal regime of the Khymer Rouge under Pol Pot (1975-79) when it thought that as many as two million people were killed. Since that time, extreme political instability and sporadic fighting have hampered development within the country. Cambodia is largely a low-lying country fringed by modest-sized mountain ranges and upland plateaux in the southwest, north, and east. The Dangrek Mountains form the frontier with Thailand in the northwest. The heart of the country is the Mekong River drains a saucer-shaped basin whose gently rolling alluvial plains. The western part of the basin is occupied by a large lake, the Tónié Sap (Great Lake).
BURUNDI is a small, densely populated republic in central east Africa bounded by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the west. One of the world’s poorest nations, Burundi consists mainly of an upland plateau at an elevation of around 1,400-1,800 meters or 4,600-5,900 feet. In the west, the land falls away to the River Rusizi and Lake Tanganyika valley, lying within the African Rift Valley. The plateau also drops away eastwards and southeastwards towards the valleys of the Ruyuvu and Malagarasi rivers.
BURKINA FASO is a landlocked country in West Africa. The People’s Democratic Republic of Burkina Faso was formerly called Upper Volta and is one of the world’s poorest countries. It comprises a plateau region in the north on the Sahara fringe, which gives way southwards to an area of plains. The northern part of the country is arid and is an extension of the Sahara Desert. The south is less dry and has savannah-type vegetation and scattered trees, although desertification threatens part of this land.
BULGARIA is a southeast European republic located on the east of the Balkan Peninsula with a coast on the Black Sea to the east. It is bounded to the north by Romania, to the west by Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the south by Greece and Turkey.
Hills or mountains cover about half of Bulgaria’s land area. The center of Bulgaria is crossed from west to east by the Balkan Mountains. In the south, the Rhodopi Mountains straddle the border with Greece, and, in the western central region of the country, the Rila mountain chain contains the country’s highest peak, Musala (2,925 meters or 9,597 feet).
BRUNEI is a sultanate located on the northwest coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. It is bounded on all sides by the Malaysian state of Sarawak, which splits the country into two separate parts. Broad tidal swamplands cover the coastal plains, and inland Brunei is hilly and covered with tropical rainforests.
BRAZIL is a huge South American country bounded to the north, south, and east by the Atlantic Ocean. It is the fifth-largest country in the world and covers nearly half of South America. There are two dominant topographical features – the great Amazon river basin and the ancient plateau region of crystalline rocks called the Brazilian Highlands. The Amazon river basin occupies a huge land area, over one-third of the country’s area, and much of this covered with tropical rainforests.
BOTSWANA is a landlocked republic in southern Africa which straddles the Tropic of Capricorn. South Africa surrounds Botswana to the south and east, Namibia to the west, Zimbabwe to the northeast, and meet at Zambia west of the Victoria Falls. Much of the west and southwest of the country forms part of the Kalahari Desert. There is a huge area of marshland around the Okavango Delta in the north, which is home to a wide variety of wildlife. East and south of the delta are the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans.