From afar, Africa may seem majestically empty: the tremendous Sahara, the deep forest, the unbroken plains. A closer look reveals a continent where nearly a billion people and untold numbers of animals coexist on a complex sweep of the Earth. Since prehistory, humans have adapted to the challenges of Africa. Today it lies divided into more nations than any other continent. But, as shown by this satellite-derived map, landscapes that ignore national borders form a mosaic of ecosystems that subtly blend into one another. From the temperate Mediterranean through desert and scattered croplands to forest, swamp and savanna, the lands of Africa each compose their own rules for life and inside them, life flourishes. This map was published in September 2005 as half of a two-map set with "Africa: The Human Footprint." Intriguing facts about the geographic features and the ways in which humans have both molded and deferred to the forces of nature make this map essential to the historian and geographer alike. It is a compelling companion to National Geographic's maps of Africa produced throughout the 20th century. Presented in Sinusoidal projection, this map is represented in a pseudocylindrical equal-area manner, with minimizes the distortion around the equatorial region