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79-513: The origins of the Ovimbundu are Bantu populations who drifted in from the North, over the last millennium, and formed local/regional groups which slowly became political units and foci of social identity: M'Balundu, Sele, Wambo, Bieno and others. They developed a sophisticated agriculture, completed by the breeding of small animals (chicken, goats, swine) as well as of a modicum of cows bought from

158-413: A considerable number of villages and much infrastructure (roads, railways, bridges etc.). Many people died, and many others fled to cities either in their own area ( Benguela , Lobito ) or in distant areas (mainly Luanda and its surroundings, but also Lubango ). During long periods parts of Umbundu territory were under UNITA control. Since 2002, considerable efforts at reconstruction have been made - by

237-489: A huge group of languages spread throughout Western, Central and Southern Africa. The Benue–Congo branch includes the Bantu languages, which are found throughout Central, Southern, and Eastern Africa. A characteristic feature of most Atlantic–Congo languages, including almost all the Bantu languages except Swahili, Sotho-Tswana and Nguni languages, is their use of tone. They generally lack case inflection , but grammatical gender

316-564: A major new population center near the Great Lakes of East Africa, where a rich environment supported a dense population. The Urewe culture dominated the Great Lakes region between 650BC and 550BC. It was one of Africa's oldest iron-smelting centres. By the first century BC, Bantu speaking communities in the great lakes region developed iron forging techniques that enabled them to produce carbon steel . Movements by small groups to

395-633: A merging of populations in East and South Africa . Homo naledi likely coexisted with modern humans in Africa about 300,000 years ago. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe (c. 1075–c. 1220) was one of the earliest state in the South African region. It was located at between the Shashe and Limpopo Rivers. The name is derived from either TjiKalanga and Tshivenda . The kingdom is thought to have existed as

474-475: A more complex intermixing could have taken place. Further east, Bantu-speaking communities had reached the great Central African rainforest, and by 500   BC, pioneering groups had emerged into the savannas to the south, in what are now the Democratic Republic of Congo , Angola , and Zambia . Another stream of migration, having moved east by 3,000 years ago (1000   BC), was creating

553-523: A professional leader and diviner. Trade agreements that had linked the independent chiefdoms led to the development of regional specializations, including metalwork and cornmeal production. Slavery and the slave trade were also an integral part of Ovimbundu societies. Caravan trading declined with the suppression of the slave trade and, more importantly, the construction of the Benguela Railway in 1904, and came to an end shortly after 1910. In

632-401: A robust mining sector and comparatively developed secondary and tertiary sectors . Additionally many countries (with the exception of Mozambique and Malawi in particular) have relatively well developed infrastructure. Some of its main exports including platinum , diamonds , gold , copper , cobalt , chromium and uranium , Southern Africa still faces some of the problems that the rest of

711-460: A significant part of this people is now scattered all over Angola. In political terms, the Angolan parliamentary elections of 2008 reflected an important shift in Ovimbundu loyalty: while most of them had voted UNITA in the previous (1992) election, their majority now voted MPLA - because (after the death of Jonas Savimbi) UNITA had lost much of its credibility, but also because strengthening UNITA

790-407: A small population of European ( Afrikaner , British , Portuguese Africans , etc.) and Asian descent ( Cape Malays , Indian South Africans , etc.) people in many southern African countries. Further information in the sections of Architecture of Africa : Further information in the sections of History of science and technology in Africa : Some key factors affecting the food security within

869-505: Is a major food producer and exporter in the region. Data on agricultural production trends and food insecurity especially in term of food availability for Southern Africa is readily available through the Famine Early Warning Systems Network ( FEWS NET ) and Southern African Development Community ( SADC ) - Food, Agriculture and Nature Resource Directorate (FARN). However, this data might not fully capture

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948-567: Is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme , the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community , and the physical geography definition based on the physical characteristics of the land. Defined by physical geography , Southern Africa is home to a number of river systems; the Zambezi River is the most prominent. The Zambezi flows from the northwest corner of Zambia and western Angola to

1027-546: Is characteristic, with some languages having two dozen genders ( noun classes ). The root of the verb tends to remain unchanged, with either particles or auxiliary verbs expressing tenses and moods. For example, in a number of languages the infinitival is the auxiliary designating the future. Before the expansion of Bantu-speaking farmers, Central, Southern, and Southeast Africa were likely populated by Pygmy foragers, Khoisan -speaking hunter-gatherers , Nilo-Saharan -speaking herders, and Cushitic -speaking pastoralists . It

1106-484: Is clear that there were human populations in the region at the time of the expansion, and pygmies are their closest living relatives. However, mtDNA genetic research from Cabinda suggests that only haplogroups that originated in West Africa are found there today, and the distinctive L 0 of the pre-Bantu population is missing, suggesting that there was a complete population replacement. In South Africa, however,

1185-492: Is linguistic evidence for this expansion – a great many of the languages which are spoken across sub-Equatorial Africa are remarkably similar to each other, suggesting the common cultural origin of their original speakers. The linguistic core of the Bantu languages, which comprise a branch of the Atlantic-Congo language family , was located in the southern regions of Cameroon . Genetic evidence also indicates that there

1264-569: Is the dominant economy of the region. Generally, mining, agriculture, the public sector and tourism dominate the economies of Southern African countries, apart from South Africa which has mature and flourishing financial, retail, and construction sectors. Zimbabwe maintains a smaller banking and real estate sector along with what remains of its manufacturing industry, despite a protracted economic crisis . Most global banks have their regional offices for Southern Africa based in Johannesburg . Over

1343-634: Is the remnant of an independent western Batwa ( Mbenga or "Baaka") language. Before the Bantu expansion, Khoisan -speaking peoples inhabited Southern Africa. Their descendants have largely mixed with other peoples and adopted other languages. A few still live by foraging, often supplemented by working for neighbouring farmers in the arid regions around the Kalahari desert, while a larger number of Nama continue their traditional subsistence by raising livestock in Namibia and adjacent South Africa. Prior to

1422-426: Is thought that Central African Pygmies and Bantus branched out from a common ancestral population c. 70,000 years ago. Many Batwa groups speak Bantu languages; however, a considerable portion of their vocabulary is not Bantu in origin. Much of this vocabulary is botanical, deals with honey collecting, or is otherwise specialised for the forest and is shared between western Batwa groups. It has been proposed that this

1501-456: The Bantu languages are treated as synonymous with the geographic location of ceramic remnants; the popular approach of attempting to correlate linguistic reconstructions with archaeological data has resulted in propagation of the faulty presumption and circular reasoning that the earliest ceramic manufacturing in a given area is evidence for the earliest presence of Bantu-speakers . Within

1580-602: The Bushveld basin into South Africa. This extends southwest through the Witwatersrand and Northern Cape of South Africa toward the southern coast. Mining activity exists across the eastern region. Diamond mining is found in parts of Botswana and along the Namibian coast. Coal can also be found in central Mozambique, Zimbabwe and northeast South Africa. The climate of the region is broadly divided into subtropical in

1659-589: The Comoros , Eswatini , Lesotho , Madagascar , Malawi , Mauritius , Mozambique , Namibia , South Africa , Zambia , and Zimbabwe . In cultural geography , the island country of Madagascar is often not included due to its distinct language and cultural heritage. In physical geography , the geographical delineation for the subregion is the portion of Africa south of the Cunene and Zambezi Rivers: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and

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1738-704: The Indian Ocean on the coast of Mozambique . Along the way, it flows over Victoria Falls on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe . Victoria Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the world and a major tourist attraction for the region. Southern Africa includes both subtropical and temperate climates, with the Tropic of Capricorn running through the middle of the region, dividing it into its subtropical and temperate halves. Countries commonly included in Southern Africa include Angola , Botswana ,

1817-797: The Monomatapa kings built the Great Zimbabwe complex. The Swahili city-states were also established early in this period. These include sultanates based at Lamu , Mombasa , Kilwa , Pate and Malindi . The Swahili traded with the inland kingdoms, including Great Zimbabwe. Such processes of state-formation occurred with increasing frequency from the 16th century onward. They likely resulted from denser population, which led to more specialised divisions of labour, including military power, while making outmigration more effortful. Other factors promoting state-formation were increased trade among African communities and with European and Arab traders on

1896-525: The colonial territories led to the independence of new states of Angola and Mozambique as well as Southern Rhodesia , which declared independence as Zimbabwe in 1980. The denouement of South West Africa achieved independence as Namibia in 1990 and the black majority in South Africa took power after the democratic elections in 1994 , therefore ending the Apartheid regime. From the end of

1975-698: The 11th and 16th centuries, powerful Bantu-speaking states on a scale larger than local chiefdoms began to emerge. Notable early kingdoms include the Kingdom of the Kongo in present-day Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo , the Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom in the Great Lakes region, the Kingdom of Mapungubwe (c.1075–c.1220) in present-day South Africa , and the Zambezi River, where

2054-670: The 1820s between Shaka's half-brothers Dingane and Mhlangana due to a succession dispute. Boer settlers began arriving northwards of the Orange River in the 1830s, which led to conflicts between the two peoples and resulted in the Battle of Blood River in 1838. The kingdom fell during the Anglo-Zulu War of the late 19th-century. In the aftermath of World War II , the colonial powers came under international pressure to decolonize. The transfer to an African majority, however,

2133-454: The 1990s these industries have struggled in the face of globalization and cheaper imports from China , leading to job losses particularly in heavy industry , gold mining and textiles . Zimbabwe in particular has seen significant deindustrialization as a result of factors both domestic and foreign. While colonialism has left its mark on the development over the course of history, today poverty , corruption , and HIV / AIDS are some of

2212-434: The Bantu expansion. Nilo-Saharan -speaking herder populations comprised a third group of the area's pre-Bantu expansion inhabitants. Linguistic, archeological and genetic evidence indicates that during the course of the Bantu expansion, "independent waves of migration of western African and East African Bantu-speakers into southern Africa occurred." In some places, genetic evidence suggests that Bantu language expansion

2291-502: The Central African rainforest is extremely spotty and consequently far from convincing so as to be taken as a reflection of a steady influx of Bantu speakers into the forest, let alone movement on a larger scale." Seidensticker (2024) indicates that the prevalent paradigm for the Bantu expansion has a forced connection between Central African ceramics and Central African languages , where the geographic location of speakers of

2370-807: The June–August rainfall maximum in the western cape. Year-to-year variability in rainfall, including drought, is associated with changes in global and regional sea surface temperatures . These include the El Nino Southern Oscillation , the Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole , and changes in the Benguela Current region in the southeast Atlantic. Future climate projections suggest that much of southern Africa will get hotter and drier in response to global climate change. East and southern Africa are among

2449-817: The SADC region and ensures sustainable energy developments through sound economic, environmental and social practices. The main objective of the power pool is to develop a world class, robust and safe interconnected electrical system across the Southern African Region. According to a report by Southern Africa Power Pool, the three largest producers of electricity in Southern Africa as at 2017, include Eskom in South Africa with an estimated 46,963MW, Zesco in Zambia with 2,877MW and SNL of Angola with 2,442MW. Whilst moderately successful by African standards,

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2528-677: The Sahara into various parts of West Africa (e.g., Benin , Cameroon , Ghana , Nigeria , Togo ), as a result of desertification of the Green Sahara in 7000 BC. From Nigeria and Cameroon, agricultural Proto-Bantu peoples began to migrate , and amid migration, diverged into East Bantu peoples (e.g., Democratic Republic of Congo ) and West Bantu peoples (e.g., Congo, Gabon ) between 2500 BC and 1200 BC. He suggests that Igbo people and Yoruba people may have admixture from back-migrated Bantu peoples. The Atlantic-Congo family comprises

2607-663: The South African border. There are numerous environmental issues in Southern Africa , including air pollution and desertification . Southern Africa is home to many people. It was initially populated by San , Hottentots and Pygmies in widely dispersed concentrations. Due to the Bantu expansion , the majority of African ethnic groups in this region, including the Xhosa , Zulu , Tsonga , Swazi , Northern Ndebele , Southern Ndebele , Tswana , Sotho , Pedi , Mbundu , Ovimbundu , Shona , Chaga and Sukuma , speak Bantu languages . The process of colonization and settling resulted in

2686-766: The UN subregion, these countries and territories are often included in Southern Africa: The Democratic Republic of the Congo is generally included in Central Africa, while Seychelles and Tanzania are more commonly associated with Eastern Africa, but these three countries have occasionally been included in Southern Africa, as they are the SADC members. The terrain of Southern Africa is varied, ranging from forest and grasslands to deserts . The region has both low-lying coastal areas, and mountains. In terms of natural resources,

2765-927: The United Nations geoscheme for Africa, five states constitute Southern Africa: This definition excludes other countries in the region, and instead includes the Comoros, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Réunion, the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean (as a part of the French Southern Territories ), Zambia, and Zimbabwe in Eastern Africa , Angola in Middle Africa (or Central Africa), and Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha (under

2844-596: The Western Cape in South Africa, the major rainfall season is during the southern-hemisphere summer, from December to February. In the Western Cape , the rainfall maximum occurs from June through August. There are a number of important rainfall-producing weather systems in southern Africa. These include tropical-extra-tropical cloud bands, tropical lows, and tropical cyclones , cut-off lows , and mesoscale convective systems . Winter midlatitude storms account for

2923-520: The Zambezi and Limpopo river valleys, probably due to the lower altitude. The Western Cape has a Mediterranean vegetation and climate, including the unique fynbos , grading eastward into an oceanic climate along the Garden Route to Gqeberha and East London . The Namib and Kalahari deserts form arid lands in the centre-west, separating the highlands, woodlands, croplands, and pastures of

3002-641: The arrival of Bantus in Southeast Africa, Cushitic -speaking peoples had migrated into the region from the Ethiopian Highlands and other more northerly areas. The first waves consisted of Southern Cushitic speakers, who settled around Lake Turkana and parts of Tanzania beginning around 5,000 years ago. Many centuries later, around AD 1000, some Eastern Cushitic speakers also settled in northern and coastal Kenya . Khoisan -speaking hunter-gatherers also inhabited Southeast Africa before

3081-491: The biggest factors impeding economic growth. In addition, South Africa and Zimbabwe in particular, face high emigration among their skilled workers leading to a significant brain drain to western economies and billions lost in human capital flight . The pursuit of economic and political stability is an important part of the region's goals, as demonstrated by the SADC, however complete regional integration remains an elusive target. In terms of economic strength, South Africa

3160-577: The case in the Bantu language-speaking Lemba of Southern Africa . Where Bantu was adopted via language shift of existing populations, prior African languages were spoken, probably from African language families that are now lost, except as substrate influences of local Bantu languages (such as click sounds in local Bantu languages). It seems likely that the expansion of the Bantu-speaking people from their core region in West Africa began around 4000–3500   BC. Although early models posited that

3239-587: The coasts, technological innovations in economic activity, and new techniques in the political-spiritual ritualisation of royalty as the source of national strength and health. Other inland centres established during this phase of expansion include Bigo bya Mugenyi in Uganda , Thimlich Ohinga in Kenya and the Kweneng' Ruins in South Africa . Manfred K. H. Eggert stated that "the current archaeological record in

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3318-507: The communities already present at the coast. Between 300 AD-1000 AD, through participation in the long-existing Indian Ocean trade route , these communities established links with Arabian and Indian traders, leading to the development of the Swahili culture . Other pioneering groups had reached modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa by AD 300 along the coast, and the modern Limpopo Province (formerly Northern Transvaal ) by AD 500. Between

3397-525: The conclusion that the Bantu expansion was a significant human migration. Generally, the movements of Bantu language-speaking peoples from the Cameroon/Nigeria border region throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa radically reshaped the genetic structure of the continent and led to extensive admixture between migrants and local populations. A 2023 genetic study of 1,487 Bantu speakers sampled from 143 populations across 14 African countries revealed that

3476-444: The continent does. Despite this, diamond production has fueled the economies of Botswana and Namibia, for example. Over the 20th century, the region developed a robust manufacturing sector, focused on South Africa and Zimbabwe, which allowed greater prosperity and investments into infrastructure, education and healthcare that elevated both nations into middle income economies and captured growing markets across Africa. However, since

3555-414: The earliest regions where modern humans (Homo sapiens) and their predecessors are believed to have lived. In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260 CT scans , of a virtual skull shape of the last common human ancestor to modern humans , representative of the earliest modern humans, and suggested that modern humans arose between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago through

3634-414: The early speakers were both iron-using and agricultural, definitive archaeological evidence that they used iron does not appear until as late as 400   BC, though they were agricultural. The western branch, not necessarily linguistically distinct, according to Christopher Ehret , followed the coast and the major rivers of the Congo system southward, reaching central Angola by around 500   BC. It

3713-603: The expansion occurred ~4,000 years ago in Western Africa. The results showed that Bantu speakers received significant gene-flow from local groups in regions they expanded into. Based on dental evidence, Irish (2016) concluded that the common ancestors of West African and Proto-Bantu peoples may have originated in the western region of the Sahara , amid the Kiffian period at Gobero , and may have migrated southward, from

3792-600: The expansion of supermarkets in the region, which is changing the way people obtain food in the city, rural-to-urban migration, unemployment, and poverty. The issue of food insecurity in general and urban food insecurity in particular in the region is also characterized by an increased consumption of caloric junk food and processed foods leading to potential increase in the co-existence of undernutrition and dietary-related chronic diseases such as obesity and hypertension. In South Africa for example, while over 50% experience hunger, 61% are overweight or morbidly obese. There

3871-825: The farmer-herders to the South ( Nyaneka-Nkhumbi , Ovambo ). Incisive change came about when the Portuguese established a colonial bridgehead in Benguela , in the 16th century. Several of the small kingdoms saw their advantage in organising an intense caravan trade between Benguela and peoples of the East, in particular the Chokwe , the Luvale and the Mbunda , from whom they obtained wax, rubber, honey and ivory. Each trading caravan had

3950-418: The fierce debate among linguists about the word "Bantu", Seidensticker (2024) indicates that there has been a "profound conceptual trend in which a "purely technical [term] without any non-linguistic connotations was transformed into a designation referring indiscriminately to language, culture, society, and race"." Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa . No definition

4029-433: The first class-based social system within the region. Society was mainly centered around family and farming. The kingdom would culminate to the Kingdom of Zimbabwe in the 13th century. And at its height the capital's population was about 5000 people. There are no written records from the kingdom and what historians and archeologists know of the state is from the remains of buildings. The Kingdom of Zimbabwe (c. 1220–1450)

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4108-563: The following years, the Ovimbundu completely changed their economy to cash crop production of corn, sold to a rapidly increasing network of Portuguese traders. However, because of their demographic growth, and because significant portions of their lands were appropriated by Europeans for coffee, sisal and other plantations, many Ovimbundu started to work as paid labour, mainly on European plantations in their own region or in Northwest Angola, but also in Namibian mines. The Ovimbundu are

4187-454: The government, interested in national reconciliation, but to a large extent by the people themselves, by the churches and by a variety of NGOs. A significant proportion of the "internally displaced" Ovimbundu have returned to their places of origin, where traditional forms of social organization have often survived or then been reconstituted. However, larger or smaller Ovimbundu communities have remained in many cities outside their habitat, so that

4266-592: The groups of the Bamenda highlands (occupied for 2000 years until today), somewhat south and contiguous with the Mambilla region, have an ancient history of descent from the north in the direction of the Mambilla region. Initially, archaeologists believed that they could find archaeological similarities in the region's ancient cultures that the Bantu-speakers were held to have traversed. Linguists, classifying

4345-445: The highlands between Cameroon and Nigeria . The 60,000-km Mambilla region straddling the borderlands here has been identified as containing remnants of "the Bantu who stayed home" as the bulk of Bantu-speakers moved away from the region. Archaeological evidence from the separate works of Jean Hurault (1979, 1986 and 1988) and Rigobert Tueché (2000) in the region indicates cultural continuity from 3000 BC until today. The majority of

4424-426: The hunter-forager proto- Khoisan , who had formerly inhabited Southern Africa. In Eastern and Southern Africa , Bantu speakers may have adopted livestock husbandry from other unrelated Cushitic -and Nilotic -speaking peoples they encountered. Herding practices reached the far south several centuries before Bantu-speaking migrants did. Archaeological , linguistic , genetic , and environmental evidence all support

4503-468: The languages and creating a genealogical table of relationships, believed they could reconstruct material culture elements. They believed that the expansion was caused by the development of agriculture, the making of ceramics, and the use of iron, which permitted new ecological zones to be exploited. In 1966, Roland Oliver published an article presenting these correlations as a reasonable hypothesis. The hypothesized Bantu expansion pushed out or assimilated

4582-662: The main social basis of UNITA , an anti-colonial movement that fought against the Portuguese from 1966 to 1974, was an adversary of the rival movement MPLA during the Angolan Civil War of 1975 to 2002, and is at present an opposition political party. During the Civil War the two major cities located in Umbundu territory, Huambo and Kuito , were to a large extent destroyed by the MPLA and UNITA respectively, as were

4661-547: The name Saint Helena) in Western Africa , instead. Some atlases include Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in Central Africa instead of Southern or Eastern Africa. The Southern African Customs Union , created in 1969, also comprises the five states in the UN subregion of Southern Africa. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) was established in 1980 to facilitate co-operation in the region. It includes: Other than

4740-439: The north and temperate in the south, but also includes humid-subtropical , Mediterranean-climate , highland-subtropical , oceanic, desert, and semi-arid regions. Except for lower parts of Zambia and interior areas of Namibia and Botswana, the region rarely suffers from extreme heat. In addition, the winter presents mostly as mild and dry, except in the southwest. Cool southeasterly winds and high humidity bring cool conditions in

4819-573: The other in the south ( Kingdom of Butua from 1450–1683) which was a smaller entity than the former two, the kingdom was governed by the Torwa dynasty and its capital was situated at Khami . Both states would eventually be absorbed by the powerful Shona state, the Rozwi Empire by 1683. The economy was based on cattle herding, farming, and gold mining. The empire lasted until 1866, which came after droughts and instability. The Mthethwa Paramountcy

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4898-591: The part of Mozambique that lies south of the Zambezi River. That definition is most often used in South Africa for natural sciences and particularly in guidebooks such as Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa , the Southern African Bird Atlas Project , and Mammals of the Southern African Subregion . It is not used in political, economic, or human geography contexts because the definition cuts Mozambique in two. In

4977-408: The period of colonial rule, imperial interests controlled the economies of the region and South Africa became the dominant economic power in the late 20th century. The 21st century has seen attempts to create unity among nations in Southern Africa. In spite of democracy, violence , inequality and poverty still persist throughout the region. The region is distinct from the rest of Africa, with

5056-782: The reality of a region with large urban populations and where food insecurity goes beyond per-capita availability to issues of access and dietary adequacy. Urban food security has been noted as an emerging area of concern in the region, with recent data showing high levels of food insecurity amongst low-income households. In a study of eleven cities in nine countries: Blantyre , Cape Town , Gaborone , Harare , Johannesburg , Lusaka , Maputo , Manzini , Maseru , Durban , and Windhoek , only 17% of households were categorized as 'food-secure' while more than half (57%) of all households surveyed were found to be 'severely food-insecure'. Some factors affecting urban food insecurity include climate change with potential impact on agricultural productivity,

5135-757: The region has the world's largest resources of platinum and the platinum group elements, chromium , vanadium , and cobalt , as well as uranium , gold , copper , titanium , iron , manganese , silver , beryllium , and diamonds . Southern Africa is set apart from other Sub-Saharan African regions because of its mineral resources, including copper, diamonds, gold, zinc, chromium, platinum, manganese, iron ore, and coal. Countries in Southern Africa are larger in geographic area, except three smaller landlocked states: Lesotho, Swaziland, and Malawi. The larger states- South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, and Angola—all have extensive mineral deposits. These widespread mineral resources make this one of

5214-679: The region largely lags behind their Asian counterparts in innovation, foreign direct investment, STEM sciences and research and development . Southern Africa has a wide diversity of ecoregions including grassland , bushveld , karoo , savannah and riparian zones . Even though considerable disturbance has occurred in some regions from habitat loss due to human population density or export-focused development, there remain significant numbers of various wildlife species, including white rhino , lion , African leopard , impala , kudu , blue wildebeest , vervet monkey and elephant . It has complex Plateaus that create massive mountain structures along

5293-875: The regions including political instability, poor governance, droughts, population growth, urbanisation, poverty, low economic growth, inadequate agricultural policies, trade terms and regimes, resource degradation and the recent increase in HIV/AIDS . These factors vary from country to country. For example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has favourable climatic and physical conditions, but performs far below its capacity in food provision due to political instability and poor governance. In contrast, semi-arid countries such as Botswana and Namibia, produce insufficient food, but successfully achieve food security through food imports due to economic growth, political stability and good governance. The Republic of South Africa

5372-417: The second – and possibly others – went south along Africa's Atlantic coast into what is now the Republic of the Congo , Gabon , Cameroon , Democratic Republic of the Congo , and Angola , or inland along the many south-to-north flowing rivers of the Congo River system. The expansion reached South Africa, probably as early as AD 300. Bantuists believe that the Bantu expansion most probably began on

5451-436: The southeast from the Great Lakes region were more rapid, with initial settlements widely dispersed near the coast and near rivers, due to comparatively difficult farming conditions in areas farther from water. Archaeological findings have shown that by 100 BC to 300 AD, Bantu speaking communities were present at the coastal areas of Misasa in Tanzania and Kwale in Kenya. These communities also integrated and intermarried with

5530-422: The wealthiest regions of Africa with the greatest potential for economic growth . A chain of mineral resources in Southern Africa stretches from the rich oil fields in northwest Angola, east through the central diamond-mining region in Huambo Province , and into the Copper Belt region of Zambia and Congo. A region of rich mineral deposits continues to the south called the Great Dyke in central Zimbabwe, through

5609-489: The wetter and higher East from the Atlantic Ocean . In addition, the Drakensberg and Eastern Highlands separate the highland areas and coastal plains centred on Mozambique in the north and KwaZulu-Natal in the south, the latter of which are often prone to flooding every few years. In the east, the river systems of the Zambezi and Limpopo basin form natural barriers and sea lanes between Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Across most of southern Africa, apart from

5688-509: The winter. The Namib Desert is the driest area in the region. Altitude plays an outsize role in moderating the temperatures of the South African Highveld , Lesotho , and much of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The prairie region of central and northeast South Africa, the country of Zimbabwe, and parts of Zambia are known as the veldt , divided into the Bushveld and Highveld . There are high temperatures and low rainfall within

5767-504: The years, some the other Southern African nations have invested in economic diversification, and invested public funds into rail, road and air transportation as part of a concerted effort through SADC to boost regional trade and improve communication and transportation. The countries in this region also belong to the Southern Africa Power Pool, which facilitates the development of a competitive electricity market within

5846-521: Was a Shona ( Karanga ) kingdom in what is today Zimbabwe . The capital, which sits near present-day Masvingo , is located at Great Zimbabwe , which are the largest stone structure in precolonial Southern Africa. This kingdom came after the collapse of the Kingdom of Mapungubwe. During the decline of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, two powers emerged, one in the north ( Kingdom of Mutapa from 1430–1760) which had improved on Zimbabwe's administrative structure; and

5925-494: Was a large human migration from central Africa, with varying levels of admixture with local population. The expansion is believed to have taken place in at least two waves, between about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago (approximately 2,000 BC to AD 1). Linguistic analysis suggests that the expansion proceeded in two directions: the first went across or along the Northern border of the Congo forest region (towards East Africa), and

6004-415: Was an African state that emerged in the late 18th-century in the region of present-day KwaZulu-Natal . The state was consolidated and extended under the rule of Dingiswayo who produced a disciplined and highly organised army for the first time in the region. The Zulu Kingdom rose under the leadership of Shaka and covered most of present-day KwaZulu-Natal in the 19th century. Internal conflict arose in

6083-438: Was complicated by the settlement of white peoples . After an initial phase from 1945 to 1958, as a consolidation of white power, decolonization succeeded in its achievement when High Commission territories and overseas departments such as Zambia , Malawi , Botswana , Lesotho , Mauritius , Swaziland , Madagascar and the Comoros became independent states from British and French rule. The brutal struggle for independence in

6162-586: Was largely a result of substantial population replacement. In other places, Bantu language expansion, like many other languages, has been documented with population genetic evidence to have occurred by means other than complete or predominant population replacement (e.g. via language shift and admixture of incoming and existing populations). For example, one study found this to be the case in Bantu language speakers who are African Pygmies or are in Mozambique , while another population genetic study found this to be

6241-513: Was seen as implying the risk of a renewal of armed violence. Bantu expansion The Bantu expansion was a major series of migrations of the original Proto-Bantu -speaking group , which spread from an original nucleus around West - Central Africa . In the process, the Proto-Bantu-speaking settlers displaced, eliminated or absorbed pre-existing hunter-gatherer and pastoralist groups that they encountered. There

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