dark continent

noun

1

or Dark Continent : the continent of Africa

It was by the merest caprice of fortune that they headed toward the west coast of Africa, instead of toward Zanzibar on the opposite side of the dark continent.

—Edgar Rice Burroughs

… little was actually known about the interior of the Dark Continent until the mid-1800s.

—Angus Carroll

2

: something unknown or unexplored

From Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the world received the shocking discovery that man had opened the dark continent of the atom.

—Daniel J. Boorstein

Word History

First Known Use

1829, in the meaning defined at sense 1