Skip to main content

10 facts you didn't know about Chad


Chad is a landlocked Central African country, bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the South, Cameron and Nigeria to the south-west, and Niger to the west. The capital and largest city in Chad is N'Djamena. Chad obtained independence in 1960, under the leadership of Francois Tombalbaye. The official languages spoken in Chad are French and Arabic. General Idriss Déby Itno has been the President of Chad since December 2, 1990.
As of 2015, the Chadian population is estimated to be 13,670,084. Here are more pertinent facts about Chad. 
1. Chad is named after its most popular lake, Lake Chad. Lake Chad used to be the seventh largest lake in the world and the fourth largest in Africa. However, due to advanced desertification and low rainfall, it has shrunk to less than 10% of its former size and volume. Lake Chad is however the largest lake in the Chad Basin.

2. According to the Borgen Project, Chad is one of the poorest countries in the world and has the lowest life expectancy of all countries. In 2017, the life expectancy for a Chadian was only 50.6 years, while that of the country with the highest life expectancy, Monaco, was almost 40 years longer.

3. Chad is presently home to at least 20,000 Nigerian refugees (who fled the Boko Haram insurgency), 100,000 Central African Republic refugees, and 360,000 Sudanese refugees.

4. Chad is sometimes referred to as the "Dead Heart of Africa" because majority of the country's area is categorized as desert. The Saharan desert region covers approximately the northern third of Chad.

Ounianga lakes, Chad
5. Chad is the fifth largest country in Africa. The first four largest countries are: Algeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Libya, respectively. Chad is also the largest landlocked country in Africa.

Ounianga Serir, Northern Chad, photo by Isa Boutriau
6. According to UNICEF, Chad has the third highest prevalence rate of child marriage in the world. 67% of girls in Chad are married before the age of 18 and 30% are married before the age of 15.
7. Chad has a very low literacy rate. According to UNESCO (2016), Chad has an adult literacy rate of 22.31%. The country's male literacy rate is 31.33%, and female literacy rate, 13.96%.

8. Chad has the sixth highest child mortality rate in the world. One in seven children in Chad die before their fifth birthday. In the same light, Chad ranks second in the 2017 Global Hunger Index.

9. According to the World Food Program (WFP), 87% of Chad's rural population lives below the poverty line (live on less than $1 a day).

10. In Chad, donkey milk is used to cure whooping cough.
 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Popular Posts

Princess Qajar - The Revolutionary Persian Princess

Zahra Khanom Tadj es-Saltaneh commonly referred to as Princess Qajar was a princess and memoirist of the Qajar Dynasty. Princess Tadj was one of the best known daughters of the Persian king, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar who ruled Persia from 1848 to May 1896. The Persian princess was born on February 4, 1883 and died on January 25, 1936, in Tehran, at the age of 52. Princess Qajar revolutionized beauty standards with her full look and ragged unibrow, and her unmistakably evident mustache. She was a true epitome of beauty at her time. Princess Qajar was declared a symbol of beauty in Persia and was coveted by many men. Thousands of men wanted to marry her, 13 of whom committed suicide upon being rejected by the princess. Princess Qajar eventually married Amir Hussein Khan Shoja'-al Saltaneh and had they had four children - two boys and two girls. They later got divorced in 1907 after enduring an unloving arranged marriage - she married Khan when she was 13. The princess argued f...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Lehman Brothers Scandal (2008)

Company Background : Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a firm specialized in the provision of global financial services. It was founded in Montgomery, Alabama, in the United States of America. The company had headquarters in New York City, New York, in the U.S. It ceased operations in 2008. The founders were: Henry Lehman, Emmanuel Lehman and Mayer Lehman. What Happened? Lehman Brothers hid over $50 billion in loans disguised as sales. They allegedly sold toxic assets [1] to Cayman Island Banks with the understanding that they would eventually be rebought. How they were caught : Their bankruptcy led to the discovery of the fraud. They filed for bankruptcy in 2008, which is the largest bankruptcy ever recorded. Their case was larger than that of Enron, Washington Mutual, WorldCom and GM combined.  On September 15, 2008, Lehman brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection  (Montgomery, n.d.) . Their bankruptcy filing came in as a blow to the financial indu...
1 comment
Read more

The finger-cutting tradition of Indonesia's Dani tribe

The death of a loved one is always an extremely painful thing to bear, and people of different cultures grieve in diverse ways, some more unique than others. A typically unique way of grieving is that of the Dani (an Indonesian tribe). Finger-cutting is a fundamental part of grieving for women of the Dani tribe, and pertains to their women only. According to The Globe and Mail, an estimated 250,000 Dani tribe members live in a town named Wamena, in the extremely remote central highland area of Papua Province. Wamena is only accessible by plane.  Upon the death of a loved one, the top joint of one of a woman's fingers would be amputated, and smear ashes and clay across their faces. Prior to amputation, a string would be firmly tied to the upper half of the woman's finger for 30 minutes, to cause numbness. This was to reduce the pain from amputating the tip. In most cases, the responsibility of cutting off the top joint of the finger is assigned to one of the woman's...
1 comment
Read more