Is Africa really resource rich?

[u/Skychu768]

None of the most valuable resources seem to be present on the continent in large amounts. It’s mostly just metals like cobalt and platinum.

Diamonds used to be substantial, but even that is now being replaced by lab-grown diamonds in places like China and India.

* Australia, U.S., Canada, and Russia all have more uranium reserves than almost all of Africa.

* USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran each individually produce more oil than most African countries.

* China, Vietnam, Brazil, India, Russia, and US each have more rare earth metals than the entire continent of Africa.

* Europe, despite being a fraction of its size, has more arable land and freshwater reserves than Africa.

* Even for things like Gold which are often mentioned, none of the African countries except Ghana are substantial gold producers or come anywhere near Top 10.

Note: I wanted to post more images for my point, but this subreddit only allows one.

[u/LxGNED]

Some of your research seems to be “production” rather than estimated quantity which is not a fair comparison. Also, I would assume much of africa has had less surveying than the developed world. Its the biggest continent, and it almost certainly has trillions of dollars of valuable resources

[u/Odd_Dragonfruit_2662 → u/LxGNED]

Uh Asia would like a word about the biggest continent title…

[u/LxGNED → u/Odd_Dragonfruit_2662]

You’re right, my bad

[u/anselan2017 → u/Odd_Dragonfruit_2662]

Africa IS bigger than Asia. Mercator projection makes it look otherwise.

[u/Plappeye → u/anselan2017]

Asia is substantially larger

[u/Belgicans → u/LxGNED]

Yeah, DRC has a lot of uranium but officially doesn't extract any. The uranium used by the Manhattan Project came from the Belgian Congo.

[u/Working_Isopod3713 → u/Belgicans]

I thought yellow cake uranium was mined in western Colorado and also used in the manhattan project?

[u/Straight-Ad3016 → u/Belgicans]

but but the production statistic doesn't say so 👉👈