Most of the African countries are divided into provinces.
Provinces are the regions of a country or state of a fixed administrative division. States are centralized organization of particular polity.
Explanation:
Africa is divided into number of provinces. There are nine provinces in South Africa: Eastern cape, western cape, northern cape, free state etc. Each of the provinces has its own climatic and unique features. Some of the provinces are in the dense vegetal area, some are near to the desert or in desert.
On the other hand, states resembles not separate climatic and environmental characteristics. Most of the states belong to same characteristic feature like different state of United States like Florida, Kansas etc.