On the west-coast of South Africa just left of Botswana lays the republic of Namibia. With only 1.8 million citizens on more then 800,000 square kilometres of land Namibia is the worlds second least densely populated country. It’s named after the Namib Desert.
Namibia has been inhabited by bushmen, Damara and Namaque forever. In the 14Th century AD the Bantu imigrated to Namibia due to the Bantu expansion. It took the Europeans up to the 19Th century to extensively explore the country. The Germans invaded Namibia and turned it into a German colony called German South-West Africa or in German “Deutsh Südwestafrica”. Only the Walvisbay maintained under British control.
After World War I South Africa took over Namibia and Namibia became an internationally unrecognized part of South Africa. In 1966 the guerrilla movement “People’s Liberation Army of Namibia” started a war for independence, but it took up to 1988 before South Africa agreed to leave Namibia. In 1990 Namibia became officially independent. With the ending of the apartheid in 1994 the British gave Walvisbay back to the Namibian people.
Namibia is mostly desert. It has a generally dry climate with exception of the cold north-flowing Benguella current who accounts for some low precipitation. The highest point is the Königstein with an elevation of 2,606 meters.
Although most of Namibia is just dry desert the Etosha Pan forms an exception during the wet season. During the wet season the Etosha pan consists of a 6,000 square kilometers covering lake which is of extreme importance to the local ecological system. Here you’ll find several species of animals which can’t be found anywhere else in the world.
Because of it’s beauty Namibia is getting more and more populair with tourists. This is why the Namibia Tourism Board was established on the 2th of April, 2001. On http://www.namibiatourism.com.na/ you’ll find lots of information on traveling to Namibia.
Until 1990, German, English and Afrikaans where all the official languages of Namibia. After the independence the new government did not want to get in any conflicts between German and Afrikaans talking groups, so English became the official language.
Nowadays both German and Afrikaans are still regional recognized languages but English is the language used at schools and in the newspapers. Besides English, German and Afrikaans a lot of people still speak native tribe languages.
HIV / AIDS is a very big problem in Namibia. The country has the highest infection rate on the continent and there neighbours Botswana have the second highest rate. In 2003 an estimated 16,000 people died due to AIDS.
UNICEFS estimates that end 2005 19.6% of all the people aged between 15 - 49 years is infected with the HIV virus. 230,000 people of all ages are infected with HIV in Namibia (end 2005). 130,000 of these people are women’s who transmitted the disease to their children.
But there’s good news as well. 69% of the young people living in Namibia has used a condom at the last high risk sex between 2000 - 2006. More then 35% of the young population has comprehensive knowledge about AIDS. And as the literacy rates are increasing every year (now the literacy rate among young people is well over 90%) there is a chance to beat the epidemic.
Click here for all data provided by UNICEF
With a little over 2,000,000 citizens, Namibia is one of the least densely populated country’s in the world. Even so the variety of people is great.
Most Namibian citizens are Black african. This group consists out of many different tribes. The biggest tribe in Namibia are the Ovambo, they form about half of the population and live primarily in the North of the country. Next to the Ovambo people there are the Herero and the Himba, they speak a very similar language. All the above named tribes are Bantu people. Bantu is a name for a collection of very similar African languages. Next to the Bantu population lives the Khoisan. They consist primarily out of Bushmen & Nama. These are the descendants of the original habitants of South Africa. Next to all these tribes there’s a group of Bantu descent refugees from Angola.
Next to the black Africans there’s a small group (8% of the population) of mixed racial origins who go by the name of Coloureds or Basters.
And then theres a small group (5% of the population) of whites which consists of Dutch, Germans, French, British and Portuguese. Most of them speak Afrikaans, however the Germans remain to keep there German culture and education as former settlers.
Half of all Namibian people speak Oshiwambo, but Afrikaans and German are the most widely understood languages. Among the young generation English is the most widely understood language as it became the official language with the independence in 1990.
Portuguese is only spoken by whites and blacks who origin from Angola.
As for the religion in Namibia christianity is the largest. In particular the Lutheran Church is the largest, followed by the Roman Catholics. Only an estimated 3% of the population is Muslim.
Offcourse this page is far from being complete, but there are a lot of websites on the internet who do provide al the information you could possibly want on Namibia. Here are a few links: