Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa on the Atlantic coast.
It shares borders with Angola, and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the south.
It gained independence from South Africa in 1990 and its capital city is Windhoek.
Namibia is a member state of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Commonwealth of Nations.
Namibia is straddled between two deserts, the Namib along the west, and the Kalahari in the east.
It is a large country of over 800,000 square kilometres, larger than France and Great Britain combined. With a population of only 1.6 million, there is a great deal of open space…. And ample blue sky all year round!
For this reason Namibia attracts many eco-tourists with the majority visiting to experience the different climates and natural geographical landscapes such as the great eastern desert and plains.
It is a strikingly beautiful country, with all the credentials for the best landscape in Southern Africa.
Namibia has vast, open spaces that create a splendid dreamscape of swirling orange red sand dunes and shimmering white salt flats.
Wedged between the sun baked realm of the Kalahari and the chilly waters of the South Atlantic, it is a country blessed with an incredible abundance of natural resources.
Northern Namibia is home to the fascinating Himba people who live their nomadic life like the Maasai in Kenya.
The Caprivi is a wetlands paradise and Damaraland is a vast and scenic land that is home to the desert elephant and the largest free roaming black rhino populations.
Etosha National Park, Africas fourth largest park, steals the show in the north.
The Namib Naukluft Park in southern Namibia is one of the largest conservancies in the world. The Kalahari is serene and beautiful and the Fish River Canyon is dramatic and spectacular. Sossusvlei steals the show in the south.
Whilst Namibia is famous for it’s endless desert and scrubland, it has always been an unforgiving environment for a determined farmer with a dream.
Only 2% of the country receives enough rain to grow crops. Irrigation from rivers is possible only along a few border rivers in the far north and south and borehole irrigation is prohibitively expensive.
One of the most fertile grounds in Namibia for agriculture is next to the Orange River (the longest river in Namibia) where a substantial tract of land is owned by the Government of the Republic.
Farmers lease the state-owned land for cultivation, and a number of governmental projects have taken care of the development of dams, hydro electric power, water supply and irrigation.
Especially the irrigation projects have turned thousands of acres of land into fertile ground for agriculture.