127-592: The Zambezi Region is one of Namibia 's fourteen regions , situated in the north-eastern part of the country along the Zambezi River where it gets its name from. The region's capital is the town of Katima Mulilo . The Katima Mulilo Airport is 18 kilometres south-west of the town, while the village of Bukalo is located 43 kilometres south-east of Katima Mulilo. Formerly known as the Caprivi Region until 2013, it has eight electoral constituencies and
254-503: A 1993 film , are about a white boy encountering a wandering San and his wife, and how the San's life and survival skills save the white teenagers' lives in a journey across the desert. James A. Michener 's The Covenant (1980), is a work of historical fiction centered on South Africa. The first section of the book concerns a San community's journey set roughly in 13,000 BC. In Wilbur Smith 's novel The Burning Shore (an instalment in
381-529: A Bantu-speaking ethnic group native to southern Africa . They consist of several tribes, including the Bafwe , Bambukushu , Basubia , Batotela , and Bayeyi , each with its own dialect and traditional authority . These tribes share the same Lozi culture and traditions. Silozi serves as the standard language that unifies them and is widely used in educational materials, media such as television and radio, and government communications. Additionally, Silozi plays
508-654: A free and fair election . SWAPO won a plurality of seats in the Constituent Assembly with 57% of the popular vote. This gave the party 41 seats, but not a two-thirds majority, which would have enabled it to draft the constitution on its own. The Namibian Constitution was adopted in February 1990. It incorporated protection for human rights and compensation for state expropriations of private property and established an independent judiciary, legislature, and an executive presidency (the constituent assembly became
635-708: A 1997 conference in Cape Town on "Khoisan Identities and Cultural Heritage" organized by the University of the Western Cape . The term San is now standard in South African, and used officially in the blazon of the national coat-of-arms . The "South African San Council" representing San communities in South Africa was established as part of WIMSA in 2001. The term Basarwa (singular Mosarwa )
762-501: A Bushman (2002) on the murder of San tracker Optel Rooi by South African police; The Will To Survive (2009), which covers the history and situation of San communities in southern Africa today; and My Land is My Dignity (2009) on the San's epic land rights struggle in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve . A documentary on San hunting entitled, The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story (2000), directed by Damon and Craig Foster . This
889-418: A Kalahari San group's first encounter with an artifact from the outside world (a Coca-Cola bottle). By the time this movie was made, the ǃKung had recently been forced into sedentary villages, and the San hired as actors were confused by the instructions to act out inaccurate exaggerations of their almost abandoned hunting and gathering life. " Eh Hee " by Dave Matthews Band was written as an evocation of
1016-711: A considerable barrier to navigation on the Zambezi. During World War I , the Caprivi Strip again came under British rule and was governed as part of Bechuanaland but it received little attention and became known as a lawless frontier. The region became of geopolitical importance during the 1980s when it was used as a jumping off point and re-supply route for South African support for the UNITA movement in Angola . Caprivi Region became one of Namibia's thirteen regions when
1143-612: A crucial role in preserving and promoting cultural heritage, serving as a common medium for cultural practices and ceremonies. Additionally, there is a population of San , specifically the Khwe people , residing in Bwabwata in the western part of the region. According to the 2012 Namibia Labour Force Survey, unemployment in the Zambezi Region is 28.0%. Zambezi has 102 schools with a total of 39,808 pupils. Bwabwata National Park
1270-487: A hunter is able to obtain enough food, he can afford to have a second wife as well. Villages range in sturdiness from nightly rain shelters in the warm spring (when people move constantly in search of budding greens), to formalized rings, wherein people congregate in the dry season around permanent waterholes. Early spring is the hardest season: a hot dry period following the cool, dry winter. Most plants still are dead or dormant, and supplies of autumn nuts are exhausted. Meat
1397-506: A matter of subsequent agreement as to which territories in the foregoing territories will be brought under the trusteeship system and under what terms". The UN requested all former League of Nations mandates be surrendered to its Trusteeship Council in anticipation of their independence. South Africa declined to do so and instead requested permission from the UN to formally annex South West Africa, for which it received considerable criticism. When
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#17327835179361524-614: A population of 142,373 according to the 2023 census. The region comprises eight electoral constituencies : Electorally, Zambezi is consistently dominated by the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). In the 2004 regional election for the National Assembly of Namibia , SWAPO won all constituencies, and mostly by a landslide. In the 2015 regional elections SWAPO won in all eight constituencies and obtained 77.5% of all votes ( 2010 : 80%). In
1651-545: A root saa "picking up from the ground" + plural -n in the Haiǁom dialect . "Bushmen" is the older cover term, but "San" was widely adopted in the West by the late 1990s. The term Bushmen , from 17th-century Dutch Bosjesmans , is still used by others and to self-identify, but is now considered pejorative or derogatory by many South Africans. In 2008, the use of boesman (the modern Afrikaans equivalent of "Bushman") in
1778-520: A sewage-to-water treatment project in Namibia not only provides citizens with safe drinking water, but also boosts productivity by 6% per year. All pollutants and impurities are removed using cutting-edge "multi-barrier" technology, which includes residual chlorination, ozone treatment, and ultra membrane filtration. Strict bio-monitoring methods are also used throughout the process to ensure high-quality, safe drinking water. On 8 June 2023, Namibia became
1905-541: A slow-acting arrow poison produced by beetle larvae of the genus Diamphidia . A set of tools almost identical to that used by the modern San and dating to 42,000 BC was discovered at Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal in 2012. In 2006, what is thought to be the world's oldest ritual is interpreted as evidence which would make the San culture the oldest still practiced culture today. Historical evidence shows that certain San communities have always lived in
2032-589: A study published in March 2011, Brenna Henn and colleagues found that the ǂKhomani San, as well as the Sandawe and Hadza peoples of Tanzania , were the most genetically diverse of any living humans studied. This high degree of genetic diversity hints at the origin of anatomically modern humans . A 2008 study suggested that the San may have been isolated from other original ancestral groups for as much as 50,000 to 100,000 years and later rejoined, re-integrating into
2159-430: A wealth of information in anthropology and genetics . One broad study of African genetic diversity , completed in 2009, found that the genetic diversity of the San was among the top five of all 121 sampled populations. Certain San groups are one of 14 known extant "ancestral population clusters"; that is, "groups of populations with common genetic ancestry, who share ethnicity and similarities in both their culture and
2286-426: A westerly and southwesterly direction to as little as 50 mm (2 in) and less per annum at the coast. The only perennial rivers are found on the national borders with South Africa, Angola, Zambia, and the short border with Botswana in the Caprivi Strip. In the interior of the country, surface water is available only in the summer months when rivers are in flood after exceptional rainfalls. Otherwise, surface water
2413-740: A year later. Driven by a lifelong fascination with this "vanished tribe," Van der Post published a 1958 book about this expedition, entitled The Lost World of the Kalahari. It was to be his most famous book. In 1961, he published The Heart of the Hunter, a narrative which he admits in the introduction uses two previous works of stories and mythology as "a sort of Stone Age Bible," namely Specimens of Bushman Folklore ' (1911), collected by Wilhelm H. I. Bleek and Lucy C. Lloyd , and Dorothea Bleek 's Mantis and His Friend. Van der Post's work brought indigenous African cultures to millions of people around
2540-614: Is Windhoek . The driest country in sub-Saharan Africa , Namibia has been inhabited since pre-historic times by the Khoi , San , Damara and Nama people . Around the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion . From 1600 the Ovambo formed kingdoms, such as Ondonga and Oukwanyama . In 1884, the German Empire established rule over most of
2667-547: Is 6,100 square kilometres (2,400 sq mi) and extends for about 180 km (110 mi) from the Kavango River in the west to the Kwando River in the east. Deciduous woodlands are dominated by trees such as wild seringa , copalwood and Zambezi teak . While the park is sanctuary to 35 large and numerous small game species, visitors are not likely to see many of these animals, as vehicles are restricted to
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#17327835179362794-664: Is a with the Kavango East Region in the west. The Namibia-Zambia-Botswana tripoint lies less than 100 metres from the Zimbabwe border – causing Namibia sometimes erroneously thought to border Zimbabwe. The Zambezi Region is home to 450 animal species, including elephants, making the Zambezi Region a popular spot for game-watching. Wildlife is safeguarded by several national parks : Bwabwata National Park , Nkasa Rupara National Park (formerly Mamili National Park), and Mudumu National Park . Animals move freely across
2921-531: Is by far the largest urban settlement in Namibia. Namibia extends from 17°S to 25°S latitude: climatically the range of the sub-Tropical High Pressure Belt. Its overall climate description is arid, descending from the Sub-Humid [mean rain above 500 mm (20 in)] through Semi-Arid [between 300 and 500 mm (12 and 20 in)] (embracing most of the waterless Kalahari) and Arid [from 150 to 300 mm (6 to 12 in)] (these three regions are inland from
3048-408: Is generally flat and the soils sandy, limiting their ability to retain water and support agriculture. The Kalahari Desert, an arid region that extends into South Africa and Botswana, is one of Namibia's well-known geographical features. The Kalahari, while popularly known as a desert, has a variety of localised environments, including some verdant and technically non-desert areas. The Succulent Karoo
3175-453: Is home to over 5,000 species of plants, nearly half of them endemic ; approximately 10 percent of the world's succulents are found in the Karoo. The reason behind this high productivity and endemism may be the relatively stable nature of precipitation. Namibia's Coastal Desert is one of the oldest deserts in the world. Its sand dunes, created by the strong onshore winds, are the highest in
3302-440: Is home to small populations of sitatunga and red lechwe while spotted neck otter , hippo and crocodile inhabit the waterways. Animals to be encountered are elephant , buffalo , roan , sable , kudu , impala , oribi , zebra , wild dog as well as some 430 species of birds. The Namibian Wetland Route , established in 2005, is a local tourism association of businesses along a route from Divundu to Impalila . Until
3429-401: Is particularly important in the dry months when wildlife cannot range far from the receding waters. Women gather fruit, berries, tubers, bush onions, and other plant materials for the band's consumption. Ostrich eggs are gathered, and the empty shells are used as water containers. Insects provide perhaps 10% of animal proteins consumed, most often during the dry season. Depending on location,
3556-417: Is restricted to a few large storage dams retaining and damming up these seasonal floods and their run-off. Where people do not live near perennial rivers or make use of the storage dams, they are dependent on groundwater. Even isolated communities and those economic activities located far from good surface water sources, such as mining, agriculture, and tourism, can be supplied from groundwater over nearly 80% of
3683-576: Is significantly more productive than the Namib Desert. As summer winds are forced over the Escarpment, moisture is extracted as precipitation. The Bushveld is found in north-eastern Namibia along the Angolan border and in the Caprivi Strip. The area receives a significantly greater amount of precipitation than the rest of the country, averaging around 400 mm (16 in) per year. The area
3810-473: Is situated at the southern edge of the tropics; the Tropic of Capricorn cuts the country about in half. The winter (June – August) is generally dry. Both rainy seasons occur in summer: the small rainy season between September and November, and the big one between February and April. Humidity is low, and average rainfall varies from almost zero in the coastal desert to more than 600 mm (24 in) in
3937-479: Is used for the San collectively in Botswana. The term is a Bantu ( Tswana ) word meaning "those who do not rear cattle", that is, equivalent to Khoekhoe Saan . The mo-/ba- noun class prefixes are used for people; the older variant Masarwa , with the le-/ma- prefixes used for disreputable people and animals, is offensive and was changed at independence. In Angola, they are sometimes referred to as mucancalas , or bosquímanos (a Portuguese adaptation of
Zambezi Region - Misplaced Pages Continue
4064-718: The Die Burger newspaper was brought before the Equality Court . The San Council testified that it had no objection to its use in a positive context, and the court ruled that the use of the term was not derogatory. The San refer to themselves as their individual nations, such as ǃKung (also spelled ǃXuun , including the Juǀʼhoansi ), ǀXam , Nǁnǂe (part of the ǂKhomani), Kxoe (Khwe and ǁAni), Haiǁom , Ncoakhoe , Tshuwau , Gǁana and Gǀui (ǀGwi) , etc. Representatives of San peoples in 2003 stated their preference for
4191-602: The 2020 regional election SWAPO still had the vast majority of votes (45.4%) but lost four of the eight constituencies, three to independent candidates and one to the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), an opposition party formed in August 2020. The Zambezi Region can be classified as a tropical area, with high temperatures and high rainfall during the December-to-March rainy season , making it
4318-455: The Dutch term for "Bushmen"). The terms Amasili and Batwa are sometimes used for them in Zimbabwe . The San are also referred to as Batwa by Xhosa people and as Baroa by Sotho people . The Bantu term Batwa refers to any foraging tribesmen and as such overlaps with the terminology used for the "Pygmoid" Southern Twa of South-Central Africa. The hunter-gatherer San are among
4445-559: The German Empire deployed troops to the contested places and cemented the status quo among the Nama, Oorlam, and Herero. In 1878, the Cape of Good Hope , then a British colony, annexed the port of Walvis Bay and the offshore Penguin Islands ; these became an integral part of the new Union of South Africa at its creation in 1910. The first Europeans to disembark and explore the region were
4572-677: The German government acknowledge the genocide and agreed to pay €1.1 billion over 30 years in community aid. During World War I, South African troops under General Louis Botha occupied the territory and deposed the German colonial administration. The end of the war and the Treaty of Versailles resulted in South West Africa remaining a possession of South Africa, at first as a League of Nations mandate , until 1990. The mandate system
4699-655: The Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty . The German motivation behind the swap was to acquire a strip of land linking German South West Africa with the Zambezi River , providing easy access to Tanganyika (Tanzania) and an outlet to the Indian Ocean . Unfortunately for the Germans, the British colonisation of Rhodesia ( Zimbabwe and Zambia ) stopped them well upstream of Victoria Falls , which proved
4826-536: The Kalahari were first brought to the globalized world's attention in the 1950s by South African author Laurens van der Post . Van der Post grew up in South Africa, and had a respectful lifelong fascination with native African cultures. In 1955, he was commissioned by the BBC to go to the Kalahari desert with a film crew in search of the San. The filmed material was turned into a very popular six-part television documentary
4953-548: The Khoe , Tuu , and Kxʼa language families, and can be defined as a people only in contrast to neighboring pastoralists such as the Khoekhoe and descendants of more recent waves of immigration such as the Bantu , Europeans , and Asians . In 2017, Botswana was home to approximately 63,500 San, making it the country with the highest proportion of San people at 2.8%. 71,201 San people were enumerated in Namibia in 2023, making it
5080-565: The Lutheran religion among the Ovambo and Kavango people . In the late 19th century, Dorsland Trekkers crossed the area on their way from the Transvaal to Angola. Some of them settled in Namibia instead of continuing their journey. Namibia became a German colony in 1884 under Otto von Bismarck to forestall perceived British encroachment and was known as German South West Africa ( Deutsch-Südwestafrika ). The Palgrave Commission by
5207-656: The Republic of Namibia , is a country in Southern Africa . Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean . It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the east and south. Although it does not border Zimbabwe , less than 200 metres (660 feet) of the Botswanan right bank of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Its capital and largest city
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5334-647: The San , Damara , and Nama . For thousands of years, the Khoisan peoples of Southern Africa maintained a nomadic life, the Khoikhoi as pastoralists and the San people as hunter-gatherers . Around the 14th century, immigrating Bantu people began to arrive during the Bantu expansion from central Africa. From the late 18th century onward, Oorlam people from Cape Colony crossed the Orange River and moved into
5461-614: The Skeleton Coast to the northwest, the Namib Desert and its coastal plains to the southwest, the Orange River to the south, and the Kalahari Desert to the east. The Central Plateau is home to the highest point in Namibia at Königstein elevation 2,606 metres (8,550 ft). The Namib is a broad expanse of hyper-arid gravel plains and dunes that stretches along Namibia's entire coastline. It varies between 100 and 200 kilometres (60 and 120 mi) in width. Areas within
5588-682: The Tripartite Accord , under pressure from both the Soviet Union and the United States. South Africa accepted Namibian independence in exchange for Cuban military withdrawal from the region and an Angolan commitment to cease all aid to PLAN. PLAN and South Africa adopted an informal ceasefire in August 1988, and a United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) was formed to monitor the Namibian peace process and supervise
5715-484: The mining industry – including mining for gem diamonds, uranium , gold , silver and base metals – form the basis of its economy , while the manufacturing sector is comparatively small. Despite significant GDP growth since its independence, poverty and inequality remain significant in the country. 40.9% of the population is affected by multidimensional poverty , and more than 400,000 people continue to live in informal housing . Income disparity in
5842-414: The oshanas ( Oshiwambo : flood plains) there. The worst floods so far occurred in March 2011 and displaced 21,000 people. Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa and depends largely on groundwater. With an average rainfall of about 350 mm (14 in) per annum, the highest rainfall occurs in the Caprivi Strip in the northeast (about 600 mm (24 in) per annum) and decreases in
5969-498: The "principal human rights concern" of that country. The San kinship system reflects their history as traditionally small mobile foraging bands. San kinship is similar to Inuit kinship , which uses the same set of terms as in European cultures but adds a name rule and an age rule for determining what terms to use. The age rule resolves any confusion arising from kinship terms, as the older of two people always decides what to call
6096-474: The 1870s, the last San of the Cape were hunted to extinction, while other San were able to survive. The South African government used to issue licenses for people to hunt the San, with the last one being reportedly issued in Namibia in 1936. From the 1950s through to the 1990s, San communities switched to farming because of government-mandated modernization programs. Despite the lifestyle changes, they have provided
6223-505: The 320 km (120 sq mi) national park are Nkasa and Lupala , two large islands in the Kwando/Linyati river. During the dry season the islands can be reached by road but after the rains 80% of the area becomes flooded, cutting them off from the mainland. Mudumu National Park is a vast 1,000 km (390 sq mi) expanse of dense savannah and mopane woodland with the Kwando River at its western border. The park
6350-506: The African continent. In December 2014, Prime Minister Hage Geingob , the candidate of ruling SWAPO, won the presidential elections , taking 87% of the vote. His predecessor, President Hifikepunye Pohamba , also of SWAPO, had served the maximum two terms allowed by the constitution. In December 2019, President Hage Geingob was re-elected for a second term, taking 56.3% of the vote. On 4 February 2024, President Hage Geingob died and he
6477-478: The Atlantic Ocean, which accounts for very low precipitation (50 mm (2 in) per year or less), frequent dense fog, and overall lower temperatures than in the rest of the country. In Winter, occasionally a condition known as Bergwind (German for "mountain wind") or Oosweer ( Afrikaans for "east weather") occurs, a hot dry wind blowing from the inland to the coast. As the area behind
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#17327835179366604-580: The British acquired Zanzibar and Germany acquired the territory which became known as the Caprivi Strip . Caprivi was named after German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi , who negotiated the land in an 1890 exchange with the United Kingdom . Leo von Caprivi arranged for the Caprivi strip to be annexed to German South West Africa in order to give Germany access to the Zambezi River as part of
6731-561: The British governor in Cape Town determined that only the natural deep-water harbour of Walvis Bay was worth occupying and thus annexed it to the Cape province of British South Africa. In 1897, a rinderpest epidemic caused massive cattle die-offs of an estimated 95% of cattle in southern and central Namibia. In response the German colonisers set up a veterinary cordon fence known as the Red Line . In 1907 this fence then broadly defined
6858-455: The Caprivi Strip. Rainfall is highly variable, and droughts are common. In the summer of 2006/07 the rainfall was recorded far below the annual average. In May 2019, Namibia declared a state of emergency in response to the drought, and extended it by an additional 6 months in October 2019. Weather and climate in the coastal area are dominated by the cold, north-flowing Benguela Current of
6985-564: The First People, published in 2006, are two of them. John Marshall and Adrienne Miesmer documented the lives of the ǃKung San people between the 1950s and 1978 in Nǃai, the Story of a ǃKung Woman. This film, the account of a woman who grew up while the San lived as autonomous hunter-gatherers, but who later was forced into a dependent life in the government-created community at Tsumkwe, shows how
7112-583: The Namib include the Skeleton Coast and the Kaokoveld in the north and the extensive Namib Sand Sea along the central coast. The Great Escarpment swiftly rises to over 2,000 metres (7,000 ft). Average temperatures and temperature ranges increase further inland from the cold Atlantic waters, while the lingering coastal fogs slowly diminish. Although the area is rocky with poorly developed soils, it
7239-620: The Namibian government has promoted a policy of national reconciliation. It issued an amnesty for those who fought on either side during the liberation war. The civil war in Angola spilled over and adversely affected Namibians living in the north of the country. In 1998, Namibia Defence Force (NDF) troops were sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) contingent. In 1999,
7366-407: The Portuguese navigators Diogo Cão in 1485 and Bartolomeu Dias in 1486, but the Portuguese did not try to claim the area. Like most of the interior of Sub-Saharan Africa , Namibia was not extensively explored by Europeans until the 19th century. At that time traders and settlers came principally from Germany and Sweden. In 1870, Finnish missionaries came to the northern part of Namibia to spread
7493-539: The San consume 18 to 104 species, including grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, moths, butterflies, and termites. Women's traditional gathering gear is simple and effective: a hide sling, a blanket, a cloak called a kaross to carry foodstuffs, firewood, smaller bags, a digging stick, and perhaps, a smaller version of the kaross to carry a baby. Men, and presumably women when they accompany them, hunt in long, laborious tracking excursions. They kill their game using bow and arrows and spears tipped in diamphotoxin ,
7620-416: The San occupied the southern shores throughout the eastern shrubland and may have formed a Sangoan continuum from the Red Sea to the Cape of Good Hope . By the end of the 18th century after the arrival of the Dutch, thousands of San had been killed and forced to work for the colonists. The British tried to "civilize" the San and make them adopt a more agricultural lifestyle, but were not successful. By
7747-446: The San people (or Basarwa ), was conquered during colonization. Loss of land and access to natural resources continued after Botswana's independence. The San have been particularly affected by encroachment by majority peoples and non-indigenous farmers onto their traditional land. Government policies from the 1970s transferred a significant area of traditionally San land to majority agro-pastoralist tribes and white settlers Much of
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#17327835179367874-550: The South African San Council and the South African San Institute. This benefit-sharing agreement is one of the first to give royalties to the holders of traditional knowledge used for drug sales. The terms of the agreement are contentious, because of their apparent lack of adherence to the Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing, as outlined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The San have yet to profit from this agreement, as P57 has still not yet been legally developed and marketed. The San of
8001-515: The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming that, in accordance with the desires of its people, South West Africa be renamed Namibia . United Nations Security Council Resolution 269 , adopted in August 1969, declared South Africa's continued occupation of Namibia illegal. In recognition of this landmark decision, SWAPO's armed wing was renamed the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN). Namibia became one of several flashpoints for Cold War proxy conflicts in southern Africa during
8128-488: The UN General Assembly rejected this proposal, South Africa dismissed its opinion and began solidifying control of the territory. The UN General Assembly and Security Council responded by referring the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which held a number of discussions on the legality of South African rule between 1949 and 1966. South Africa began imposing apartheid , its codified system of racial segregation and discrimination, on South West Africa during
8255-405: The UN recognised the South West Africa People's Organisation ( SWAPO ) as the official representative of the Namibian people. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the South African Border War . However, Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994. Namibia is a stable parliamentary democracy . Agriculture, tourism and
8382-480: The World (2005) compares San cave paintings from 200 years ago to Paleolithic European paintings that are 14,000 years old. Because of their similarities, the San works may illustrate the reasons for ancient cave paintings. The presenter Nigel Spivey draws largely on the work of Professor David Lewis-Williams , whose PhD was entitled "Believing and Seeing: Symbolic meanings in southern San rock paintings". Lewis-Williams draws parallels with prehistoric art around
8509-448: The Zambezi town of Schuckmannsburg was also changed to Luhonono as part of the same process. The renaming was not without controversy, however. The group Concerned Caprivians (or Caprivi Concerned Group) released a press statement expressing concern over the name change as well as Delimitation Commission boundary and constituency demarcation changes. Caprivi African National Union (CANU) party secretary general Robert Sililo argued that
8636-466: The active ingredient in the Hoodia plant, p57 (glycoside), to be used as a pharmaceutical drug for dieting. Once this patent was brought to the attention of the San, a benefit-sharing agreement was reached between them and the CSIR in 2003. This would award royalties to the San for the benefits of their indigenous knowledge. During the case, the San people were represented and assisted by the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA),
8763-492: The area that today is southern Namibia. Their encounters with the nomadic Nama tribes were largely peaceful. They received the missionaries accompanying the Oorlam very well, granting them the right to use waterholes and grazing against an annual payment. On their way further north, however, the Oorlam encountered clans of the OvaHerero at Windhoek, Gobabis , and Okahandja , who resisted their encroachment. The Nama-Herero War broke out in 1880, with hostilities ebbing only after
8890-555: The book follows these markers throughout the world, demonstrating that all of humankind can be traced back to the African continent (see Recent African origin of modern humans , the so-called "out of Africa" hypothesis). The BBC's The Life of Mammals (2003) series includes video footage of an indigenous San of the Kalahari desert undertaking a persistence hunt of a kudu through harsh desert conditions. It provides an illustration of how early man may have pursued and captured prey with minimal weaponry. The BBC series How Art Made
9017-420: The boundaries for the first Police Zone. From 1904 to 1907, the Herero and the Namaqua took up arms against ruthless German settlers. In a calculated punitive action by the German settlers, government officials ordered the extinction of the natives in the OvaHerero and Namaqua genocide . In what has been called the "first genocide of the 20th century", the Germans systematically killed 10,000 Nama (half
9144-502: The coast is a desert, these winds can develop into sand storms, leaving sand deposits in the Atlantic Ocean that are visible on satellite images. The Central Plateau and Kalahari areas have wide diurnal temperature ranges of up to 30C (54F). Efundja , the annual seasonal flooding of the northern parts of the country, often causes not only damage to infrastructure but loss of life. The rains that cause these floods originate in Angola, flow into Namibia's Cuvelai-Etosha Basin , and fill
9271-537: The colony to South Africa. From 1948, with the National Party elected to power, this included South Africa applying apartheid to what was then known as South West Africa . In the later 20th century, uprisings and demands for political representation resulted in the United Nations assuming direct responsibility over the territory in 1966, but South Africa maintained de facto rule until 1973, when
9398-472: The country gained independence in 1990. In August 2013, following a recommendation of the fourth Delimitation Commission for the Electoral Commission of Namibia, the Caprivi Region was renamed the Zambezi Region in a step to eliminate names of colonial administrators from Namibia's maps. Alternative proposals for the region's name had included Iyambezi, Linyandi, Itenge, and others. The name of
9525-686: The country is one of the world's highest with a Gini coefficient of 59.1 in 2015. With a population of 3,022,401 people today, Namibia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations , the Southern African Development Community , the African Union and the Commonwealth of Nations . The name of the country is derived from the Namib desert,
9652-669: The country with the second highest proportion of San people at 2.4%. In Khoekhoegowab , the term "San" has a long vowel and is spelled Sān . It is an exonym meaning "foragers" and is used in a derogatory manner to describe people too poor to have cattle. Based on observation of lifestyle, this term has been applied to speakers of three distinct language families living between the Okavango River in Botswana and Etosha National Park in northwestern Namibia , extending up into southern Angola ; central peoples of most of Namibia and Botswana, extending into Zambia and Zimbabwe ; and
9779-649: The country. More than 100,000 boreholes have been drilled in Namibia over the past century. One third of these boreholes have been drilled dry. An aquifer called Ohangwena II, on both sides of the Angola-Namibia border, was discovered in 2012. It has been estimated to be capable of supplying a population of 800,000 people in the North for 400 years, at the current (2018) rate of consumption. Experts estimate that Namibia has 7,720 km (1,850 cu mi) of underground water. According to African Folder,
9906-537: The desert regions of the Kalahari; however, eventually nearly all other San communities in southern Africa were forced into this region. The Kalahari San remained in poverty where their richer neighbours denied them rights to the land. Before long, in both Botswana and Namibia, they found their territory drastically reduced. Various Y chromosome studies show that the San carry some of the most divergent (earliest branching) human Y-chromosome haplogroups . These haplogroups are specific sub-groups of haplogroups A and B ,
10033-600: The downfall of the Herero in Namibia was a model for the Nazis in the Holocaust . The memory of what happened under German rule has contributed to shape the ethnic identity in independent Namibia and has kept its significance in today's relations with Germany. The German minister for development aid apologised for the Namibian genocide in 2004. However, the German government distanced itself from this apology. Only in 2021 did
10160-424: The early phases of European colonization, tens of thousands of Khoekhoe and San peoples lost their lives as a result of genocide, murder, physical mistreatment, and disease. There were cases of “Bushman hunting” in which commandos (mobile paramilitary units or posses) sought to dispatch San and Khoekhoe in various parts of Southern Africa." Much aboriginal people 's land in Botswana, including land occupied by
10287-675: The end of the 19th century, the area was known as Itenge , and it was under the rule of the Lozi kings. In the late 19th century the strip of land was administered as part of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland (Botswana). The German Empire in 1890 laid claim to the British-administered island of Zanzibar ; Britain objected and the dispute was settled at the Berlin Conference later that year. On 1 July 1890,
10414-762: The first Southern African country and the eighth country in Africa to accede to the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UN Water Convention). San people The San peoples (also Saan ), or Bushmen , are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. Their recent ancestral territories span Botswana , Namibia , Angola , Zambia , Zimbabwe , Lesotho , and South Africa . The San speak, or their ancestors spoke, languages of
10541-401: The foraging San collectively. It was coined by Leonhard Schulze in the 1920s and popularized by Isaac Schapera in 1930. Anthropological use of San was detached from the compound Khoisan , as it has been reported that the exonym San is perceived as a pejorative in parts of the central Kalahari. By the late 1990s, the term San was used generally by the people themselves. The adoption of
10668-450: The gathering of food, but sometimes also partake in hunting. Water is important in San life. During long droughts, they make use of sip wells in order to collect water. To make a sip well, a San scrapes a deep hole where the sand is damp, and inserts a long hollow grass stem into the hole. An empty ostrich egg is used to collect the water. Water is sucked into the straw from the sand, into the mouth, and then travels down another straw into
10795-667: The government's policy regarding land tended to favor the dominant Tswana peoples over the minority San and Bakgalagadi . Loss of land is a major contributor to the problems facing Botswana's indigenous people, including especially the San's eviction from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve . The government of Botswana decided to relocate all of those living within the reserve to settlements outside it. Harassment of residents, dismantling of infrastructure, and bans on hunting appear to have been used to induce residents to leave. The government has denied that any of
10922-460: The governments throughout Southern Africa to respect and reconstitute the ancestral land-rights of all San. John Marshall, the son of Harvard anthropologist Lorna Marshall , documented the lives of San in the Nyae Nyae region of Namibia over a period spanning more than 50-years. His early film The Hunters, shows a giraffe hunt. A Kalahari Family (2002) is a series documenting 50 years in
11049-434: The last South African troops had been withdrawn from Namibia, all political prisoners granted amnesty, racially discriminatory legislation repealed, and 42,000 Namibian refugees returned to their homes. Just over 97% of eligible voters participated in the country's first parliamentary elections held under a universal franchise . The United Nations plan included oversight by foreign election observers in an effort to ensure
11176-543: The late 1940s. Black South West Africans were subject to pass laws , curfews, and a host of residential regulations that restricted their movement. Development was concentrated in the southern region of the territory adjacent to South Africa, known as the " Police Zone ", where most of the major settlements and commercial economic activity were located. Outside the Police Zone, indigenous peoples were restricted to theoretically self-governing tribal homelands . During
11303-627: The late 1950s and early 1960s, the accelerated decolonisation of Africa and mounting pressure on the remaining colonial powers to grant their colonies self-determination resulted in the formation of nascent nationalist parties in South West Africa. Movements such as the South West African National Union (SWANU) and the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) advocated for the formal termination of South Africa's mandate and independence for
11430-512: The latter years of the PLAN insurgency. The insurgents sought out weapons and sent recruits to the Soviet Union for military training. As the PLAN war effort gained momentum, the Soviet Union and other sympathetic states such as Cuba continued to increase their support, deploying advisers to train the insurgents directly as well as supplying more weapons and ammunition. SWAPO's leadership, dependent on Soviet, Angolan, and Cuban military aid, positioned
11557-587: The least rainfall of any country in sub-Saharan Africa. The Namibian landscape consists generally of five geographical areas, each with characteristic abiotic conditions and vegetation, with some variation within and overlap between them: the Central Plateau, the Namib, the Great Escarpment , the Bushveld , and the Kalahari Desert. The Central Plateau runs from north to south, bordered by
11684-400: The lives of the Juǀʼhoansi of Southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. Marshall was a vocal proponent of the San cause throughout his life. His sister Elizabeth Marshall Thomas wrote several books and numerous articles about the San, based in part on her experiences living with these people when their culture was still intact. The Harmless People, published in 1959, and The Old Way: A Story of
11811-425: The lives of the ǃKung people , who lived for millennia as hunter gatherers, were forever changed when they were forced onto a reservation too small to support them. South African film-maker Richard Wicksteed has produced a number of documentaries on San culture, history and present situation; these include In God's Places / Iindawo ZikaThixo (1995) on the San cultural legacy in the southern Drakensberg; Death of
11938-641: The mandate as a veiled annexation and made no attempt to prepare South West Africa for future autonomy. As a result of the Conference on International Organization in 1945, the League of Nations was formally superseded by the United Nations (UN) and former League mandates by a trusteeship system. Article 77 of the United Nations Charter stated that UN trusteeship "shall apply...to territories now held under mandate"; furthermore, it would "be
12065-463: The movement firmly within the socialist bloc by 1975. This practical alliance reinforced the external perception of SWAPO as a Soviet proxy, which dominated Cold War rhetoric in South Africa and the United States. For its part, the Soviet Union supported SWAPO partly because it viewed South Africa as a regional Western ally. Growing war weariness and the reduction of tensions between the superpowers compelled South Africa, Angola, and Cuba to accede to
12192-524: The music and culture of the San. In a story told to the Radio City audience (an edited version of which appears on the DVD version of Live at Radio City ), Matthews recalls hearing the music of the San and, upon asking his guide what the words to their songs were, being told that "there are no words to these songs, because these songs, we've been singing since before people had words." He goes on to describe
12319-490: The national assembly). The country officially became independent on 21 March 1990. Sam Nujoma was sworn in as the first President of Namibia at a ceremony attended by Nelson Mandela of South Africa (who had been released from prison the previous month) and representatives from 147 countries, including 20 heads of state. In 1994, shortly before the first multiracial elections in South Africa, that country ceded Walvis Bay to Namibia. Since independence Namibia has completed
12446-515: The national government quashed a secessionist attempt in the northeastern Caprivi Strip . The Caprivi conflict was initiated by the Caprivi Liberation Army (CLA), a rebel group led by Mishake Muyongo . It wanted the Caprivi Strip to secede and form its own society. In 2007, Twyfelfontein was inscribed as a cultural UNESCO World Heritage Site , a prehistoric site with one of the largest concentrations of rock engravings on
12573-460: The oldest cultures on Earth, and are thought to be descended from the first inhabitants of what is now Botswana and South Africa. The historical presence of the San in Botswana is particularly evident in northern Botswana's Tsodilo Hills region. San were traditionally semi-nomadic , moving seasonally within certain defined areas based on the availability of resources such as water, game animals , and edible plants. Peoples related to or similar to
12700-505: The oldest desert in the world. The word Namib itself is of Nama origin and means "vast place". The name was chosen by Mburumba Kerina , who originally proposed "Republic of Namib". Before Namibia became independent in 1990, its territory was known first as German South-West Africa ( Deutsch-Südwestafrika ), and then as South West Africa , reflecting its colonial occupation by Germans and South Africans, respectively. The dry lands of Namibia have been inhabited since prehistoric times by
12827-426: The ostrich egg. Traditionally, the San were an egalitarian society. Although they had hereditary chiefs , their authority was limited. The San made decisions among themselves by consensus , with women treated as relative equals in decision making. San economy was a gift economy , based on giving each other gifts regularly rather than on trading or purchasing goods and services. Most San are monogamous , but if
12954-526: The population) and approximately 65,000 Herero (about 80% of the population). The survivors, when finally released from detention, were subjected to a policy of dispossession, deportation, forced labour, racial segregation, and discrimination in a system that in many ways foreshadowed the apartheid established by South Africa in 1948. Most Africans were confined to so-called native territories, which under South African rule after 1949 were turned into "homelands" ( Bantustans ). Some historians have speculated that
13081-510: The properties of their languages". Despite some positive aspects of government development programs reported by members of San and Bakgalagadi communities in Botswana, many have spoken of a consistent sense of exclusion from government decision-making processes, and many San and Bakgalagadi have alleged experiencing ethnic discrimination on the part of the government. The United States Department of State described ongoing discrimination against San, or Basarwa , people in Botswana in 2013 as
13208-484: The relocation was forced. A legal battle followed. The relocation policy may have been intended to facilitate diamond mining by Gem Diamonds within the reserve. Hoodia gordonii , used by the San, was patented by the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1998, for its presumed appetite suppressing quality. A licence was granted to Phytopharm , for development of
13335-523: The renaming was motivated by a desire to dilute Caprivian identity and history. A statement from Concerned Caprivians read, "the name change from Caprivi to Zambezi is destined to destroy our identity and history as a symbol of renaissance, the dilution of political foundations in the identity of CANU party". 17°30′S 24°16′E / 17.500°S 24.267°E / -17.500; 24.267 Namibia Namibia ( / n ə ˈ m ɪ b i ə / , / n æ ˈ -/ ), officially
13462-634: The rest of the human gene pool. A DNA study of fully sequenced genomes, published in September 2016, showed that the ancestors of today's San hunter-gatherers began to diverge from other human populations in Africa about 200,000 years ago and were fully isolated by 100,000 years ago. According to professors Robert K. Hitchcock, Wayne A. Babchuk, " In 1652, when Europeans established a full-time presence in Southern Africa, there were some 300,000 San and 600,000 Khoekhoe in Southern Africa. During
13589-412: The return of refugees. The ceasefire was broken after PLAN made a final incursion into the territory, possibly as a result of misunderstanding UNTAG's directives, in March 1989. A new ceasefire was later imposed with the condition that the insurgents were to be confined to their external bases in Angola until they could be disarmed and demobilised by UNTAG. By the end of the 11-month transition period,
13716-513: The road between Kavango and Eastern Zambezi. Animals likely to be seen are elephant, roan and kudu. Buffalo occur towards the west. As many as 339 bird species have been recorded in the west of the Zambezi Region. The wild and little visited Nkasa Rupara National Park (formerly Mamili National Park) is Namibia's equivalent of the Okavango Delta , a watery wonderland of wildlife rich islands, river channels and wetlands. The focal points of
13843-470: The song as his "homage to meeting... the most advanced people on the planet." In Peter Godwin 's biography When A Crocodile Eats the Sun , he mentions his time spent with the San for an assignment. His title comes from the San's belief that a solar eclipse occurs when a crocodile eats the sun. Laurens van der Post 's two novels, A Story Like The Wind (1972) and its sequel, A Far Off Place (1974), made into
13970-465: The southern people in the central Kalahari towards the Molopo River , who are the last remnant of the previously extensive indigenous peoples of southern Africa. The designations "Bushmen" and "San" are both exonyms . The San have no collective word for themselves in their own languages. "San" comes from a derogatory Khoekhoe word used to refer to foragers without cattle or other wealth, from
14097-562: The striking workers would later join SWAPO's PLAN as part of the South African Border War. As SWAPO's insurgency intensified, South Africa's case for annexation in the international community continued to decline. The UN declared that South Africa had failed in its obligations to ensure the moral and material well-being of South West Africa's indigenous inhabitants, and had thus disavowed its own mandate. On 12 June 1968,
14224-641: The term was preceded by a number of meetings held in the 1990s where delegates debated on the adoption of a collective term. These meetings included the Common Access to Development Conference organized by the Government of Botswana held in Gaborone in 1993, the 1996 inaugural Annual General Meeting of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) held in Namibia, and
14351-575: The territory, forming a colony known as German South West Africa . Between 1904 and 1908, German troops waged a punitive campaign against the Herero and Nama which escalated into the first genocide of the 20th century. German rule ended during the First World War with a 1915 defeat by South African forces. In 1920, after the end of the war, the League of Nations mandated administration of
14478-526: The territory. In 1966, following the ICJ's controversial ruling that it had no legal standing to consider the question of South African rule, SWAPO launched an armed insurgency that escalated into part of a wider regional conflict known as the South African Border War . In 1971 Namibian contract workers led a general strike against the contract system and in support of independence. Some of
14605-620: The transition from white minority apartheid rule to parliamentary democracy. Multiparty democracy was introduced and has been maintained, with local, regional and national elections held regularly. Several registered political parties are active and represented in the National Assembly, although the SWAPO has won every election since independence. The transition from the 15-year rule of President Nujoma to his successor Hifikepunye Pohamba in 2005 went smoothly. Since independence,
14732-436: The two earliest branches on the human Y-chromosome tree . Mitochondrial DNA studies also provide evidence that the San carry high frequencies of the earliest haplogroup branches in the human mitochondrial DNA tree. This DNA is inherited only from one's mother. The most divergent (earliest branching) mitochondrial haplogroup, L0d , has been identified at its highest frequencies in the southern African San groups. In
14859-465: The unmarked border into Botswana , where Chobe National Park is situated. The region is also renowned for bird-watching , hosting almost 70 percent of Namibia's recorded bird species. The Zambezi Region's population of 142,373 constitutes approximately 4.71% of Namibia's total population. The region is predominantly inhabited by subsistence farmers who rely on the Zambezi, Kwando, Linyanti, and Chobe Rivers for their livelihoods. The Lozi people are
14986-582: The use of such individual group names, where possible, over the use of the collective term San . Adoption of the Khoekhoe term San in Western anthropology dates to the 1970s, and this remains the standard term in English-language ethnographic literature, although some authors later switched back to using the name Bushmen . The compound Khoisan is used to refer to the pastoralist Khoi and
15113-460: The western escarpment ) to the Hyper-Arid coastal plain [less than 100 mm (4 in)]. Temperature maxima are limited by the overall elevation of the entire region: only in the far south, Warmbad for instance, are maxima above 40 °C (104 °F) recorded. Typically the sub-Tropical High Pressure Belt, with frequent clear skies, provides more than 300 days of sunshine per year. It
15240-668: The wettest region in Namibia. The terrain mostly consists of swamps , floodplains , wetlands and woodland . In addition to the Zambezi River, the region also holds the Kwando River , which marks the border with Botswana. Tributaries include the Linyanti and the Chobe. The Kwando meets the Zambezi in the far east of the region. The Zambezi Region is almost entirely bordered by foreign countries. Its only domestic border
15367-462: The world for the first time, but some people disparaged it as part of the subjective view of a European in the 1950s and 1960s, stating that he branded the San as simple "children of Nature" or even "mystical ecologists." In 1992 by John Perrot and team published the book "Bush for the Bushman" – a "desperate plea" on behalf of the aboriginal San addressing the international community and calling on
15494-530: The world, linking in shamanic ritual and trance states. A 1969 film, Lost in the Desert , features a small boy, stranded in the desert, who encounters a group of wandering San. They help him and then abandon him as a result of a misunderstanding created by the lack of a common language and culture. The film was directed by Jamie Uys , who returned to the San a decade later with The Gods Must Be Crazy , which proved to be an international hit. This comedy portrays
15621-578: The world. Because of the location of the shoreline, at the point where the Atlantic's cold water reaches Africa's hot climate, often extremely dense fog forms along the coast. Near the coast there are areas where the dune-hummocks are vegetated. Namibia has rich coastal and marine resources that remain largely unexplored. The Caprivi Strip extends east from the northeastern corner of the country. Namibia has 13 cities, governed by municipalities and 26 towns, governed by town councils. The capital Windhoek
15748-539: The younger. Relatively few names circulate (approximately 35 names per sex), and each child is named after a grandparent or another relative, but never their parents. Children have no social duties besides playing, and leisure is very important to San of all ages. Large amounts of time are spent in conversation, joking, music, and sacred dances. Women may be leaders of their own family groups. They may also make important family and group decisions and claim ownership of water holes and foraging areas. Women are mainly involved in
15875-436: Was formed as a compromise between those who advocated for an Allied annexation of former German and Ottoman territories and a proposition put forward by those who wished to grant them to an international trusteeship until they could govern themselves. It permitted the South African government to administer South West Africa until that territory's inhabitants were prepared for political self-determination. South Africa interpreted
16002-404: Was immediately succeeded by vice-president Nangolo Mbumba as new President of Namibia. At 825,615 km (318,772 sq mi), Namibia is the world's thirty-fourth largest country (after Venezuela). It lies mostly between latitudes 17° and 29°S (a small area is north of 17°), and longitudes 11° and 26°E . Being situated between the Namib and the Kalahari deserts, Namibia has
16129-532: Was reviewed by Lawrence Van Gelder for the New York Times , who said that the film "constitutes an act of preservation and a requiem." Spencer Wells 's 2003 book The Journey of Man —in connection with National Geographic 's Genographic Project —discusses a genetic analysis of the San and asserts their genetic markers were the first ones to split from those of the ancestors of the bulk of other Homo sapiens sapiens. The PBS documentary based on
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