1.
South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
2.
Waterfall
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A waterfall is a place where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of drops in the course of a stream or river. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of an iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls are commonly formed in the course of a river. At these times the channel is narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens slowly, as the watercourse increases its velocity at the edge of the waterfall, it plucks material from the riverbed. Whirlpools created in the turbulence as well as sand and stones carried by the increase the erosion capacity. This causes the waterfall to carve deeper into the bed and to recede upstream, often over time, the waterfall will recede back to form a canyon or gorge downstream as it recedes upstream, and it will carve deeper into the ridge above it. The rate of retreat for a waterfall can be as high as one, eventually, the outcropping, more resistant cap rock will collapse under pressure to add blocks of rock to the base of the waterfall. Waterfalls normally form in an area due to erosion. After a long period of being formed, the water falling off the ledge will retreat. Eventually, as the pit grows deeper, the waterfall collapses to be replaced by a steeply sloping stretch of river bed, a river sometimes flows over a large step in the rocks that may have been formed by a fault line. Waterfalls can occur along the edge of a trough, where a stream or river flowing into a glacier continues to flow into a valley after the glacier has receded or melted. The large waterfalls in Yosemite Valley are examples of this phenomenon, another reason hanging valleys may form is where two rivers join and one is flowing faster than the other. Waterfalls can be grouped into ten classes based on the average volume of water present on the fall using a logarithmic scale. Class 10 waterfalls include Niagara Falls, Paulo Afonso Falls and Khone Falls, young Wrote Waterfalls, form and process this work made waterfalls a much more serious topic for research for modern Geoscientists. Ledge waterfall, Water descends vertically over a cliff, maintaining partial contact with the bedrock. Block/Sheet. Classical, Ledge waterfalls where fall height is equal to stream width. Curtain, Ledge waterfalls which descend over a larger than the width of falling water stream
3.
Orange River
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The Orange River is the longest river in South Africa. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, the river forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Namibia and between South Africa and Lesotho, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa. Except for Upington, it does not pass any major cities. The Orange River plays an important role in the South African economy by providing water for irrigation, the river was named by Robert Jacob Gordon after the Dutch Royal House. Other names include Gariep River, Groote River or Senqu River, the official name, however, is the Orange River. The Orange rises in the Drakensberg mountains along the border between South Africa and Lesotho, about 193 km west of the Indian Ocean and at an altitude of over 3,000 m. While in Lesotho, the river is known as the Senqu and parts of it freeze in winter and this creates droughts downstream of it which mainly affects goat and cattle production. The river then runs westward through South Africa, forming the boundary of the Free State province. In this section the river flows first into the Gariep Dam, from the border of Lesotho to below the Van der Kloof Dam the river bed is deeply incised. Further downstream the land is flatter, and the river is used extensively for irrigation. At the western point of the Free State, southwest of Kimberley, the Orange meets with its tributary, the Vaal River. From here it flows westward for 550 km, forming the border between the province and Namibias ǁKaras Region. On the border, the passes the town of Vioolsdrif. In the last 800 km of its course the Orange receives many intermittent streams, in this section, the Namib Desert terminates on the north bank of the river, so under normal circumstances the volume of water added by these tributaries is negligible. Here the bed of the river is again deeply incised. The Augrabies Falls are located on section of the Orange. The Orange empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Alexander Bay, which lies equidistant between Cape Town and Walvis Bay. Some 33 km from its mouth it is obstructed by rapids
4.
Khoikhoi
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The Khoikhoi or Khoi, spelled Khoekhoe in standardised Khoekhoe/Nama orthography, are a group of Khoisan people native to southwestern Africa. Unlike the neighbouring hunter-gatherer San people, the Khoikhoi traditionally practised nomadic pastoral agriculture, when European immigrants colonised the area after 1652, the Khoikhoi maintained large herds of Nguni cattle in the Cape region. The Dutch settlers labelled them Hottentots, in imitation of the sound of the sounds that are characteristic of the Khoekhoe language. The Khoikhoi, originally part of a culture and language group to be found across Southern Africa. Southward migration of the group was steady, eventually reaching the Cape approximately 2,000 years ago. Khoikhoi subgroups include the Namaqua to the west, the Korana of mid-South Africa, advancing Bantu in the 3rd century AD encroached on the Khoikhoi territory, forcing movement into more arid areas. There was some intermarriage between migratory Khoi bands living around what is today Cape Town and the San, however the two groups remained culturally distinct as the Khoikhoi continued to graze livestock and the San to subsist on hunting-gathering. The Khoi first encountered Portuguese explorers and merchants around AD1500, the ongoing encounters were often violent. Local population dropped when the Khoi were exposed to smallpox by Europeans, warfare against Europeans flared when the Dutch East India Company enclosed traditional grazing land for farms. Over the following century, the Khoi were steadily driven off their land, Khoikhoi social organisation was profoundly damaged and, in the end, destroyed by colonial expansion and land seizure from the late 17th century onwards. As social structures broke down, some Khoikhoi people settled on farms and became bondsmen or farm workers, others were incorporated into existing clan, like many Khoikhoi and mixed-race people, the Griqua left the Cape Colony and migrated into the interior. Responding to the influence of missionaries, they formed the states of Griqualand West, by the early 1800s, the remaining Khoi of the Cape Colony suffered from restricted civil rights and discriminatory laws on land ownership. The more cynical motive was probably to create a buffer-zone on the Capes frontier, the settlements thrived and expanded, and Kat River quickly became a large and successful region of the Cape that subsisted more or less autonomously. The people were predominantly Afrikaans-speaking Gonaqua Khoi, but the settlement also began to attract other Khoi, Xhosa, the Khoi were known at the time for being very good marksmen, and were often invaluable allies of the Cape Colony in its frontier wars with the neighbouring Xhosa. In the Seventh Frontier War against the Gcaleka Xhosa, the Khoi gunmen from Kat River distinguished themselves under their leader Andries Botha in the assault on the Amatola fastnesses. However harsh laws were implemented in the Eastern Cape, to encourage the Khoi to leave their lands in the Kat River region. The growing resentment exploded in 1850, when the Xhosa rose against the Cape Government, large numbers of Khoi for the first time joined the Xhosa rebels. However, this principle was eroded in the late 1880s by a literacy test
5.
Niagara Falls
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They form the southern end of the Niagara Gorge. From largest to smallest, the three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls, the Horseshoe Falls lies on the border of the United States and Canada with the American Falls entirely on the American side, separated by Goat Island. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are also on the American side, the international boundary line was originally drawn through Horseshoe Falls in 1819, but the boundary has long been in dispute due to natural erosion and construction. Located on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by vertical height and flow rate. The falls are 17 miles north-northwest of Buffalo, New York, while not exceptionally high, the Niagara Falls are very wide. More than six cubic feet of water falls over the crest line every minute in high flow. The Niagara Falls are famed both for their beauty and as a source of hydroelectric power. Balancing recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century. The Horseshoe Falls drop about 188 feet, while the height of the American Falls varies between 70 and 100 feet because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The larger Horseshoe Falls are about 2,600 feet wide, the distance between the American extremity of the Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 3,409 feet. The volume of water approaching the falls during peak season may sometimes be as much as 225,000 cubic feet per second. The average annual rate is 85,000 cubic feet per second. Since the flow is a function of the Lake Erie water elevation. This is accomplished by employing a weir – the International Control Dam – with movable gates upstream from the Horseshoe Falls. The falls flow is further halved at night, and, during the low tourist season in the winter, water diversion is regulated by the 1950 Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control. The current rate of erosion is approximately 1 foot per year and it is estimated that 50,000 years from now, even at this reduced rate of erosion, the remaining 20 miles to Lake Erie will have been undermined and the falls will cease to exist. The features that became Niagara Falls were created by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago, the same forces also created the North American Great Lakes and the Niagara River. All were dug by an ice sheet that drove through the area, deepening some river channels to form lakes
6.
Northern Cape
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The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up and it includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, an international park shared with Botswana. It also includes the Augrabies Falls and the mining regions in Kimberley. The Namaqualand region in the west is famous for its Namaqualand daisies, the southern towns of De Aar and Colesberg, in the Great Karoo, are major transport nodes between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. In the northeast, Kuruman is famous as a mission station, the Orange River flows through the province, forming the borders with the Free State in the southeast and with Namibia to the northwest. The river is used to irrigate the many vineyards in the arid region near Upington. Native speakers of Afrikaans comprise a higher percentage of the population in the Northern Cape than in any other province, the Northern Capes four official languages are Afrikaans, Tswana, Xhosa, and English. Minorities speak the official languages of South Africa, and a few people speak indigenous languages such as Nama. The provincial motto, Sa ǁa ǃaĩsi uĩsi, is in the Nǀu language of the Nǁnǂe people and it was given in 1997 by one of the languages last speakers, Ms. Elsie Vaalbooi of Rietfontein, who has since died. It was South Africas first officially registered motto in a Khoisan language, subsequently, South Africas national motto, ǃKe e ǀxarra ǁke, was derived from the extinct Northern Cape ǀXam language. The Northern Cape was one of three carved out of the Cape Province in 1994, the others being Western Cape to the south. Politically, it had dominated since 1994 by the African National Congress. Ethnic issues are important in the politics of the Northern Cape, for example, it is the site of the Orania settlement, whose leaders have called for a Volkstaat for the Afrikaner people in the province. They were awarded a settlement in Platfontein in 1999 by the Mandela government, the precolonial history of the Northern Cape is reflected in a rich, mainly Stone Age, archaeological heritage. Cave sites include Wonderwerk Cave near Kuruman, which has a long sequence stretching from the turn of the twentieth century at the surface to more than 1 million years in its basal layer. Many sites across the province, mostly in open air locales or in sediments alongside rivers or pans, document Earlier, Middle and they occur on hilltops, slopes, rock outcrops and occasionally, in a river bed. In the north part of the province there are sites attributable to the Iron Age such as Dithakong. The copper mines of Namaqualand and the rush to the Kimberley area resulted in industrial archaeological landscapes in those areas which herald the modern era in South African history
7.
Trekboer
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In the history of Southern Africa, the Trekboere were nomadic pastoralists descended from European settlers on the frontiers of the Dutch Cape Colony. The Trekboer included mixed-race families of partial Khoikoi descent who had become established within the economic class of burghers. They believed the VOC was tainted with corruption and not concerned with the interests of the free burghers, Trekboere also traded with indigenous people. This meant their herds were of local stock. They formed a link between the pool of animals in the interior and the providers of shipping provisions at the Cape. Trekboere were nomadic, living in their wagons and rarely remaining in one location for a period of time. A number of Trekboere settled in the eastern Cape, where their descendants known as Grensboere. Despite the VOCs attempts to prevent settler expansion beyond the western Cape, the frontier of the Colony remained open, by the 1740s the Trekboers had entered the Little Karoo. By the 1760s they reached the interior of the Great Karoo. Due to the collapse of the VOC and inspired by the French Revolution and they set up independent republics in the town of Graaff-Reinet, and four months later, in Swellendam. A few months later, the newly established Batavian Republic nationalised the VOC, a generation later, another group of Boers resisted the administration of British legislation in 1815. They rebelled at Slagters Nek and the British executed some of the Boer leaders, because of further British encroachments, constant border wars with the Xhosa to the east, and growing land shortages, numerous Boer settlers of the eastern Cape became Voortrekkers. Numerous Trekboere settled down to become farmers for a few generations. But many of the group continued well into the 20th century as a class of nomadic pastoralists. Many Trekboere crossed the Orange River decades before the Voortrekkers did, Voortrekkers often encountered Trekboere in Transorangia during their Great Trek of the 1830s and 1840s. In 1815, a Trekboer/trader named Coenraad Buys was accused of cattle theft and he allegedly contracted polygamous marriages with hundreds of indigenous women, with his descendants populating the town of Buysplaas in the Gourits River valley. He continued having numerous wives after leaving the colony, descendants of his second series of marriages still live in the small town of Buysville, near the mission station of Mara,20 km to the west of Louis Trichardt in the modern Limpopo province. Buys eventually disappeared while traveling along the Limpopo River, by the late 19th century, both the Trekboere and the Voortrekkers were collectively called Boers
8.
Augrabies Falls National Park
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Augrabies Falls National Park is a national park located around the Augrabies Falls, about 120 km west of Upington in the Northern Cape Province, South Africa. The Augrabies Falls National Park covers an area of 820 km², the waterfall is about 60 metres high and is awe-inspiring when the river is in flood. The gorge below the falls averages about 240 m deep and runs for 18 kilometres, the gorge provides an impressive example of erosion into a granitic basement. The original Khoikhoi people named the waterfall Ankoerebis, meaning the place of big noises, the Trekboers who later settled in the area derived the name Augrabies. The name is sometimes spelt Aughrabies, the most characteristic plant in the park is the giant aloe known locally as the quiver tree or kokerboom. It is perfectly adapted to the dry rocky areas found in the Nama-Karoo, able to withstand the extreme temperatures. This tree, which grows up to five high, gets its name from the fact that the Bushmen used the soft branches to make quivers for their arrows. The eye-catching silhouette of the tree is typical of this part of Northern Cape landscape. When the tree flowers in the flocks of birds are attracted to their copious nectar. A prominent landmark in the park is Moon Rock, a large exfoliation dome measuring around 700 metres by 100 metres and 30 metres high, broadleys Flat Lizard Media related to Augrabies Falls National Park at Wikimedia Commons Official website
9.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
