Southern Africa

According to the United Nations listing, countries of the Southern African Nations are limited to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland; by real-world business and exchange standards, the list comprises also Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Historically, political structures go back to the 12th century and the kingdom of Mapungubwe, on the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers and thereby encompassing territory of nowadays Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. During the second half of the 13th century this culture faded and was replaced by the rising “Great Zimbabwe” which had intense trade with the Swahilis from Kilwa and Sofala, nowadays Tanzania and Mozambique, respectively. Goods from as far as China reached ancient Southern Africa in those days, in exchange for Gold, Ivory and Iron. Great Zimbabwe declined towards the end of the 15th century and faded into oblivion.

Further west, in modern Namibia, the Nama and Herero competed for the land, a fact that the occupying German colonial force utilized to their advantage by allying with the Herero, only to crush eventually both ancestral rivals for their own benefit. This increasing European influx took place between 1850 and 1880 and in 1884 Germany declared “Deutsch Südwest-Afrika” as their possession. After WW1 first the British and then South African governments were awarded protectoral rights over today's Namibia.

South of the Limpopo river, the Sotho and Tswana peoples raised their respective kingdoms to predominance, only to be caught in a massive population displacement known as “Mfecane”, between 1815 and 1840 and triggered by the superb soldier and political leader of the Zulu nation further east, King Shaka. They were pushed south as far as the coast of the Indian Ocean and modern-day Lesotho. The Zulu themselves had their great king assassinated by his half-brother Dingaan, who was in every aspect quite inferior to Shaka and defeated by the British for good in 1880.

Finally, the southernmost parts of the continent were populated by the Khoi and San tribes, more commonly known as “Bushmen”. They fell under the powersphere of the Dutch in the Cape colony, and were either sucked into or displaced by the “Afrikaner” movement inland in the early 1800’s. Their remnants still roam the great vastnesses of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and Namibia.

All together, the Southern African countries are the world’s largest suppliers of Platinum, Uranium, Titanium and Gold, as well as Diamonds. South Africa is the economical locomotive and powerhouse of the region, with its GDP multiplying by itself the total GDP’s of all other neighboring nations combined!

The region boasts the full range of sub-equatorial habitats, from desert to coastal forests. Overpopulation is limited to specific areas and therefore there are great tracts of pristine African wilderness remaining, in turn supporting an unbelievable variety of wildlife and landscapes.