GEOGRAFIA

•The country of South Africa lies at the very southern tip of the African continent. It is bordered by two of the world’s oceans, the Atlantic Ocean on the west, and the Indian Ocean on the east. South Africa shares its land borders with more countries than any other in Africa. It has six different countries as neighbours. These countries are Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Lesotho. The country of Lesotho is a landlocked country completely surrounded by South Africa.

•The total area the country covers is 1,219,912 sq. km with a coastline 2,798 km long. In comparison, the country is slightly less than twice the size of the U.S. state of Texas.

•The country can be divided into three geographical areas. The central plateau – called The Highveld, the narrow coastal plains – called The Lowveld,

and the desert area of the Kalahari Basin. Although the country has several rivers, its lack of big arterial rivers and lakes has resulted in water shortages as the growth in water usage threatens to outpace the actual supply of water.

•The interior of South Africa is a giant, rather flat, and sparsely populated scrubland Karoo, which is drier towards the northwest along the Namib desert. In contrast, the eastern coastline is lush and well-watered, which produces a climate similar to the tropics.

The extreme southwest has a climate remarkably similar to that of the Mediterranean with wet winters and hot, dry summers, hosting the famous Fynbos Biome. This area also produces much of South Africa's wine. This region is also particularly known for its wind, which blows intermittently almost all year. The severity of this wind made passing around the Cape of Good Hope particularly treacherous for sailors, causing many shipwrecks.

Further east on the country's south coast, rainfall is distributed more evenly throughout the year, producing a green landscape. This area is popularly known as the Garden Route.

The Free State is particularly flat due to the fact that it lies centrally on the high plateau. North of the Vaal River, the Highveld becomes better watered and does not experience subtropical extremes of heat. Johannesburg, in the centre of the Highveld, is at 1 740 metres and receives an annual rainfall of 760 millimetres. Winters in this region are cold, although snow is rare.

•Environmental issues that exist include pollution of rivers from agricultural runoff and industrial uses, acid rain in areas where coal is used as a source of energy, soil erosion in overpopulated areas and desertification in areas where grasslands are being lost due to over-grazing of livestock.

•The two major ocean currents found offshore affect the temperature of the seasons. The cold Benguela current causes moderate temperatures on the West Coast, and on the central plateau the altitude tends to keep the average temperatures below 30° C. In winter, also due to altitude, temperatures can drop to the freezing point. The warm Aqulhas current flows along the eastern coast causing higher temperatures and increased rainfall.

•In general, the dry season runs from June through August although along the southern cape region, including Cape Town, temperatures are the opposite of the rest of the country.

Savanna

•A savanna or savannah is grassland with widely spaced trees, and occurs in several types of biomes. In savannas, grasses and trees are co-

dominant vegetation types, with trees and grasses often alternating in dominance over time. The herbaceous layer is usually a mixture of grasses and herbs with trees and shrubs scattered individually or in small clumps. Savannas are frequently seen as a transitional zone, occurring between forest or woodland regions and grassland or desert regions.

•Although the term savanna is believed to have originally come from an Amerindian word describing "land which is without trees but with much grass either tall or short, by the late 1800s it was used to mean "land with both grass and trees". It now refers to land with grass and either scattered trees, or an open canopy of trees. Savanna are of several different types but the savannas of Africa, including the Serengeti, famous for its wildlife, are typical of this type.

Kalahari

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•The Kalahari Desert is a large arid to semi-arid sandy area in southern Africa extending 900,000 km², covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa, as semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains. Derived from the Tswana word Keir, meaning the great thirst, or the tribal word Khalagari, Kgalagadi or Kalagare (meaning "a waterless place), the Kalahari has vast areas covered by red-brown sands without any permanent surface water.

•Ancient dry riverbeds traverse the Central Northern reaches of the Kalahari and provide standing pools of water during the rainy season. Previously havens for wild animals from

elephant to giraffe, and for predators such as lion and cheetah, the riverbeds are now mostly grazing spots, though leopard or cheetah can still be found.

•Derived from the Tswana word Keir, meaning the great thirst, or the tribal word Khalagari, Kgalagadi or Kalagare (meaning "a waterless place), the Kalahari has vast areas covered by red-brown sands without any permanent surface water. Drainage is by dry valleys, seasonally inundated pans, and the large salt pans of the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana and Ethosa Pan in Namibia. However, the Kalahari is not a true desert. Parts of the Kalahari receive over 250 mm of erratic rainfall annually and are quite well vegetated; it is only truly arid in the south-west (under 175

mm of rain annually) making the Kalahari a fossil desert. Summer temperatures in the Kalahari range from 20 to 40 °C. In winter, the Kalahari has a dry, cold climate with frosts at night. The low winter temperature can average below 0 °C.

FLORA

•South Africa has more than 20,000 different plants, or about 10% of all the known species of plants on Earth, making it particularly rich in plant biodiversity.

South Africa's most prevalent biome is grassland, particularly on the Highveld, where the plant cover is dominated by different grasses, low shrubs, and acacia trees, mainly camel-thorn and whitethorn. Vegetation

becomes even more sparse towards the northwest due to low rainfall. There are several species of water-storing succulents like aloes and euphorbias in the very hot and dry Namaqualand area. There are significant numbers of baobab trees in this area, near the northern end of Kruger National Park.

•The Fynbos Biome, one of the six floral kingdoms, is located in a small region of the Western Cape and contains more than 9,000 of those species, making it among the

richest regions on earth in terms of floral biodiversity. The majority of the plants are evergreen hard-leaf plants with fine, needle-like leaves, such as the sclerophyllous plants. Another uniquely South African plant is the protea genus of flowering plants. There are around 130 different species of protea in South Africa.

While South Africa has a great wealth of flowering plants, it has few forests. Only 1% of South Africa is covered by forests, almost exclusively in the humid coastal plain along the Indian Ocean in KwaZulu-Natal. There are even smaller reserves of forests that are out of the reach of fire, known as montane forests. Plantations of imported tree species are predominant, particularly the non-native eucalyptus and pine.

South Africa has lost extensive acreage of natural habitat in the last four decades, primarily due to overpopulation, sprawling development patterns and deforestation during the nineteenth century.

FAUNA

•Numerous mammals are found in the bushveld habitats including lion, leopard, White Rhino, Blue Wildebeest, kudu, impala, hyena, hippopotamus, and giraffe. There is a significant extent of the bushveld habitat in the northeast including Kruger National Park and the Mala Mala Reserve, as well as in the far north in the Waterberg Biosphere.

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South Africa is home to more than 300 mammal species, over 500 bird species, over 100 kinds of reptiles and countless insects. South Africa long ago recognized the richness and diversity of the animals found within its borders, and has a long history of protecting the animals by means of its system of nature reserves and national parks.