Which of the following statements about Africa is correct ?

The Tropic of Cancer (23.5°N), the Equator (0°), and the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5°S) are three fixed latitude lines circling the globe. Whether a continent is crossed by all three, only some, or none of them depends purely on how far its landmass extends north and south of the Equator.

Africa's mainland stretches from about 37°N (near Tunisia) to about 35°S (near South Africa), straddling the Equator almost symmetrically — a spread no other continent has. Because of this reach, the Tropic of Cancer passes through its northern belt (Algeria, Libya, Egypt), the Equator runs through its central belt (Gabon, Republic of Congo, Kenya, Somalia), and the Tropic of Capricorn crosses its southern belt (Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique).

• Roughly two-thirds of Africa's landmass actually lies north of the Equator, not south, so a claim of a large southern-hemisphere share reverses the real distribution.

• The Gobi Desert lies in East Asia, across Mongolia and northern China — well outside the African landmass.

• The Ural Mountains mark the conventional Europe-Asia boundary; Africa's land link to Asia is the narrow Isthmus of Suez in the northeast, now cut by the Suez Canal.

No other continent repeats this triple crossing: Asia is not crossed by the Tropic of Capricorn at all (though the Tropic of Cancer runs through it and the Equator briefly touches its Indonesian islands); South America's northernmost point falls short of the Tropic of Cancer even though the Equator and Tropic of Capricorn cross it; Australia sits wholly in the southern latitudes, crossed only by the Tropic of Capricorn. Africa alone is spanned by all three lines.