Even-toed ungulate
The even-toed ungulates are ungulates - hoofed animals - which bear weight on two of the five toes: their third and fourth toes. The other three toes are either present, vestigial, or pointing posteriorly. By contrast, odd-toed ungulates bear weight on one of the five toes: the third toe. Another difference between the two is that even-toed ungulates digest plant cellulose in one or more stomach chambers rather than in their intestine as the odd-toed ungulates do; the aquatic cetaceans evolved from even-toed ungulates, so modern taxonomic classification sometimes combines the Artiodactyla and Cetacea into the Cetartiodactyla. The 220 land-based even-toed ungulate species include pigs, hippopotamuses, llamas, mouse deer, giraffes, sheep and cattle. Many of these are of great dietary and cultural importance to humans; the oldest fossils of even-toed ungulates date back to the early Eocene. Since these findings simultaneously appeared in Europe and North America, it is difficult to determine the origin of artiodactyls.
The fossils are classified as belonging to the family Dichobunidae. These were small animals, some as small as a hare, with a slim build, lanky legs, a long tail, their hind legs were much longer than their front legs. The early to middle Eocene saw the emergence of the ancestors of most of today's mammals. Two widespread, but now extinct, families of even-toed ungulates were Enteledontidae and Anthracotheriidae. Entelodonts existed from the middle Eocene to the early Miocene in North America, they had a stocky body with short legs and a massive head, characterized by two humps on the lower jaw bone. Anthracotheres had a large, porcine build, with an elongated muzzle; this group appeared in the middle Eocene up until the Pliocene, spread throughout Eurasia and North America. Anthracothereres are thought to be the ancestors of hippos, probably led a similar aquatic lifestyle. Hippopotamuses appeared in the late Miocene and occupied Africa and Asia – they never got to the Americas; the camels were, during large parts of the Cenozoic, limited to North America.
Among the North American camels were groups like the short-legged Merycoidodontidae. They first developed a great diversity of species in North America. Only in the late Miocene or early Pliocene did they migrate from North America into Eurasia; the North American varieties became extinct around 10,000 years ago. Suina have been around since the Eocene. In the late Eocene or the Oligocene, two families stayed in Africa. South America was settled by even-toed ungulates only in the Pliocene, after the land bridge at the Isthmus of Panama formed some three million years ago. With only the peccaries and various species of capreoline deer, South America has comparatively fewer artiodactyl families than other continents, except Australia, which has no native species; the classification of artiodactyls was hotly debated because the ocean-dwelling cetaceans evolved from the land-dwelling even-toed ungulates. Some semiaquatic even-toed ungulates are more related to the ocean-dwelling cetaceans than to the other even-toed ungulates.
This makes the Artiodactyla as traditionally defined a paraphyletic taxon, since it includes animals descended from a common ancestor, but does not include all of its descendants. Phylogenetic classification only recognizes monophyletic taxa. To address this problem, the traditional order Artiodactyla and infraorder Cetacea are sometimes subsumed into the more inclusive Cetartiodactyla taxon. An alternative approach is to include both land-dwelling even-toed ungulates and ocean-dwelling cetaceans in a revised Artiodactyla taxon. Order Artiodactyla/Clade CetartiodactylaSuborder Tylopoda Family †Anoplotheriidae? Family †Cainotheriidae Family †Merycoidodontidae Family †Agriochoeridae Family Camelidae: camels and lamoids or llamas Family †Oromerycidae Family †Xiphodontidae Clade Artiofabula Suborder Suina Family Suidae: pigs Family Tayassuidae: peccaries Family †Sanitheriidae Clade Cetruminantia Clade CetancodontamorphaGenus †Andrewsarchus? Family †Entelodontidae Suborder Whippomorpha Family †Raoellidae Superfamily Dichobunoidea – paraphyletic to Cetacea and Raoellidae Family †Dichobunidae Family †Helohyidae Family †Choeropotamidae Family †Cebochoeridae Family †Mixtotheriidae Infraorder Ancodonta Family †Anthracotheriidae – paraphyletic to Hippopotamidae Family Hippopotamidae: hippos Infraorder Cetacea: whales Parvorder †Archaeoceti Family †Pakicetidae Family †Ambulocetidae Family †Remingtonocetidae Family †Basilosauridae Parvorder Mysticeti: baleen whales Superfamily Balaenoidea: right whales Family Balaenidae: greater right whales Family Cetotheriidae: pygmy right whale Superfamily Balaenopteroidea: large baleen whales Family Balaenopteridae: slender-back rorquals and humpback whale Family Eschrichtiidae: gray whale Parvorder Odontoceti: toothed whales Superfamily Delphinoidea: oceanic dolphins and others Family Delphinidae: oceanic t
Phacochoerus
Phacochoerus is a genus in the family Suidae known as warthogs. It is the sole genus of subfamily Phacochoerinae, they are found in open and semiopen habitats in quite arid regions, in sub-Saharan Africa. The two species were considered conspecific under the scientific name Phacochoerus aethiopicus, but today this is limited to the desert warthog, while the best-known and most widespread species, the common warthog is Phacochoerus africanus. Although covered in bristly hairs, their bodies and heads appear naked from a distance, with only the crest along the back, the tufts on their cheeks and tails being haired; the English name refers to their facial wattles, which are distinct in males. They have distinct tusks, which reach a length of 25.5 to 63.5 cm in the males, but are always smaller in the females. They are herbivorous, but also eat small animal food. While both species remain common and widespread, therefore are considered to be of Least Concern by the IUCN, the nominate subspecies of the desert warthog known as the Cape warthog, became extinct around 1865.
The genus Phacochoerus contains two species. D'Huart, J. P. & Grubb, P.. A photographic guide to the differences between the Common Warthog and the Desert Warthog. Suiform Soundings 5: 4-8
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, the area of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. According to the United Nations, it consists of all African countries that are or located south of the Sahara, it contrasts with North Africa, whose territories are part of the League of Arab states within the Arab world. The states of Somalia, Djibouti and the Arabic speaking Mauritania are however geographically in sub-Saharan Africa, although they are members of the Arab League as well; the UN Development Program lists 46 of Africa’s 54 countries as “sub-Saharan,” excluding Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Somalia and Tunisia. The Sahel is the transitional zone in between the Sahara and the tropical savanna of the Sudan region and farther south the forest-savanna mosaic of tropical Africa. Since 3500 BCE, the Saharan and sub-Saharan regions of Africa have been separated by the harsh climate of the sparsely populated Sahara, forming an effective barrier interrupted by only the Nile in Sudan, though the Nile was blocked by the river's cataracts.
The Sahara pump theory explains how flora and fauna left Africa to penetrate the Middle East and beyond. African pluvial periods are associated with a Wet Sahara phase, during which larger lakes and more rivers existed; the use of the term has been criticized because it refers to the South only by cartography conventions and projects a connotation of inferiority. Geographers divided the region into several distinct ethnographic sections based on each area's respective inhabitants. Commentators in Arabic in the medieval period used the general term bilâd as-sûdân for the vast Sudan region, or sometimes extending from the coast of West Africa to Western Sudan, its equivalent in Southeast Africa was Zanj, situated in the vicinity of the Great Lakes region. The geographers drew an explicit ethnographic distinction between the Sudan region and its analogue Zanj, from the area to their extreme east on the Red Sea coast in the Horn of Africa. In modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was Al-Habash or Abyssinia, inhabited by the Habash or Abyssinians, who were the forebears of the Habesha.
In northern Somalia was Barbara or the Bilad al-Barbar, inhabited by the Eastern Baribah or Barbaroi, as the ancestors of the Somalis were referred to by medieval Arab and ancient Greek geographers, respectively. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the populations south of the Sahara were divided into three broad ancestral groups: Hamites and Semites in the Horn of Africa and Sahel related to those in North Africa, who spoke languages belonging to the Afroasiatic family; the ancient Greeks sometimes referred to sub-Saharan Africa as Aethiopia, but sometimes applied this name more to the land which became Ethiopia. Sub-Saharan Africa has a wide variety of climate biomes. South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in particular are considered Megadiverse countries, it has a wet summer season. The Sahel shoots across all of Africa at a latitude of about 10° to 15° N. Countries that include parts of the Sahara Desert proper in their northern territories and parts of the Sahel in their southern region include Mauritania, Niger and Sudan.
The Sahel has a hot semi-arid climate. South of the Sahel, there is a belt of savanna, widening to include most of South Sudan and Ethiopia in the east; the Horn of Africa globally includes hot desert climate along the coast but hot semi-arid climate can be found much more in the interior, contrasting with savannah and moist broadleaf forests in the interior of Ethiopia. Tropical Africa encompasses tropical rainforest stretching along the southern coast of West Africa and across most of Central Africa west of the African Great Lakes The Eastern miombo woodlands are an ecoregion of Tanzania and Mozambique; the Serengeti ecosystem extends to southwestern Kenya. The Kalahari Basin includes the Kalahari Desert, surrounded by a belt of semi-desert; the Bushveld is a tropical savanna ecoregion of Southern Africa. The Karoo is a semi-desert in western South Africa. According to paleontology, early hominid skull anatomy was similar to that of their close cousins, the great African forest apes and chimpanzee.
However, they had adopted a bipedal locomotion and freed hands, giving them a crucial advantage enabling them to live in both forested areas and on the open savanna at a time when Africa was drying up, with savanna encroaching on forested areas. This occurred 10 million to 5 million years ago. By 3 million years ago several australopithecine hominid species had developed throughout southern and central Africa, they were tool users rather than tool manufacturers. The next major evolutionary step occurred around 2.3 million BCE, when primitive stone tools were used to scavenge the carcasses of animals killed by other predators, both for their meat and their marrow. In hunting, H. habilis was most not capable of competing with large predators and was more prey than hunter, although H. habilis did steal eggs from nests and may have been able to catch small game and weakened larger prey such as
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in southern Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique. The capital and largest city is Harare. A country of 16 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English and Ndebele the most used. Since the 11th century, present-day Zimbabwe has been the site of several organised states and kingdoms as well as a major route for migration and trade; the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes first demarcated the present territory during the 1890s. In 1965, the conservative white minority government unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia; the state endured a 15-year guerrilla war with black nationalist forces. Zimbabwe joined the Commonwealth of Nations, from which it was suspended in 2002 for breaches of international law by its then-government, from which it withdrew in December 2003; the sovereign state is a member of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
It was once known as the "Jewel of Africa" for its prosperity under the former Rhodesian administration. Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in 1980, when his ZANU-PF party won the elections following the end of white minority rule. Under Mugabe's authoritarian regime, the state security apparatus dominated the country and was responsible for widespread human rights violations. Mugabe maintained the revolutionary socialist rhetoric of the Cold War era, blaming Zimbabwe's economic woes on conspiring Western capitalist countries. Contemporary African political leaders were reluctant to criticise Mugabe, burnished by his anti-imperialist credentials, though Archbishop Desmond Tutu called him "a cartoon figure of an archetypal African dictator"; the country has been in economic decline since the 1990s, experiencing several crashes and hyperinflation along the way. On 15 November 2017, in the wake of over a year of protests against his government as well as Zimbabwe's declining economy, Mugabe was placed under house arrest by the country's national army in a coup d'état.
On 19 November 2017, ZANU-PF sacked Robert Mugabe as party leader and appointed former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa in his place. On 21 November 2017, Mugabe tendered his resignation prior to impeachment proceedings being completed. On 30 July 2018 Zimbabwe held its general elections, won by the ZANU-PF party led by Emmerson Mnangagwa. Nelson Chamisa, leading the main opposition party MDC Alliance contested the election results and filed a petition to the Constitution Court of Zimbabwe; the court confirmed Mnangagwa's victory. The name "Zimbabwe" stems from a Shona term for Great Zimbabwe, an ancient ruined city in the country's south-east whose remains are now a protected site. Two different theories address the origin of the word. Many sources hold that "Zimbabwe" derives from dzimba-dza-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as "houses of stones"; the Karanga-speaking Shona people live around Great Zimbabwe in the modern-day province of Masvingo. Archaeologist Peter Garlake claims that "Zimbabwe" represents a contracted form of dzimba-hwe, which means "venerated houses" in the Zezuru dialect of Shona and references chiefs' houses or graves.
Zimbabwe was known as Southern Rhodesia and Zimbabwe Rhodesia. The first recorded use of "Zimbabwe" as a term of national reference dates from 1960 as a coinage by the black nationalist Michael Mawema, whose Zimbabwe National Party became the first to use the name in 1961; the term "Rhodesia"—derived from the surname of Cecil Rhodes, the primary instigator of British colonisation of the territory during the late 19th century—was perceived by African nationalists as inappropriate because of its colonial origin and connotations. According to Mawema, black nationalists held a meeting in 1960 to choose an alternative name for the country, proposing names such as "Matshobana" and "Monomotapa" before his suggestion, "Zimbabwe", prevailed. A further alternative, put forward by nationalists in Matabeleland, had been "Matopos", referring to the Matopos Hills to the south of Bulawayo, it was unclear how the chosen term was to be used—a letter written by Mawema in 1961 refers to "Zimbabweland" — but "Zimbabwe" was sufficiently established by 1962 to become the preferred term of the black nationalist movement.
In a 2001 interview, black nationalist Edson Zvobgo recalled that Mawema mentioned the name during a political rally, "and it caught hold, and, that". The black nationalist factions subsequently used the name during the Second Chimurenga campaigns against the Rhodesian government during the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964–1979. Major factions in this camp included the Zimbabwe African National Union, the Zimbabwe African People's Union. Archaeological records date human settlement of present-day Zimbabwe to at least 100,000 years ago; the earliest known inhabitants were San people, who left behind arrowheads and cave paintings. The first Bantu-speaking farmers arrived during the Bantu expansion around 2000 years ago. Societies speaking proto-Shona languages fir
Djibouti
Djibouti is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, Somalia in the southeast; the remainder of the border is formed by the Gulf of Aden at the east. Djibouti occupies a total area of 23,200 km2; the state of Djibouti is predominantly inhabited by two ethnic groups, the Somali and the Afar people, the Somalis being the major ethnic group of the country. Djibouti has always been a active member in the African Union and the Arab League. In antiquity, the territory together with Somalia was part of the Land of Punt. Nearby Zeila, now in Somalia, was the seat of the medieval Ifat Sultanates. In the late 19th century, the colony of French Somaliland was established following treaties signed by the ruling Somali and Afar sultans with the French and its railroad to Dire Dawa allowed it to supersede Zeila as the port for southern Ethiopia and the Ogaden, it was subsequently renamed to the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas in 1967.
A decade the Djiboutian people voted for independence. This marked the establishment of the Republic of Djibouti, named after its capital city. Djibouti joined the United Nations the same year, on 20 September 1977. In the early 1990s, tensions over government representation led to armed conflict, which ended in a power-sharing agreement in 2000 between the ruling party and the opposition. Djibouti is a multi-ethnic nation with a population of over 942,333 inhabitants. Somali and French are the country's three official languages. About 94% of residents adhere to Islam, the official religion and has been predominant in the region for more than a thousand years; the Somali and Afar make up the two largest ethnic groups. Both speak Afroasiatic languages. Djibouti is strategically located near some of the world's busiest shipping lanes, controlling access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, it serves as a key refuelling and transshipment center, is the principal maritime port for imports from and exports to neighboring Ethiopia.
A burgeoning commercial hub, the nation is the site of various foreign military bases, including Camp Lemonnier. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development regional body has its headquarters in Djibouti City. Djibouti is known as the Republic of Djibouti. In local languages it is known as Yibuuti, جيبوتي, Jībūtī, Jabuuti; the name of the country is derived from the city of the epynomous country's capital. The etymology of the city of Djibout is disputed. Several theories and legends exist regarding varying based on ethnicity. One theory derives it from the Afar word gabouti, meaning "plate" referring to the geographical features of the area. Another connects it to gabood, meaning "upland/plateau". From 1862 until 1894, the land to the north of the Gulf of Tadjoura was called "Obock". Under French administration, from 1883 to 1967 the area was known as French Somaliland, from 1967 to 1977 as the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas. Djibouti area has been inhabited since the Neolithic. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during this period from the family's proposed urheimat in the Nile Valley, or the Near East.
Other scholars propose that the Afroasiatic family developed in situ in the Horn, with its speakers subsequently dispersing from there. Pottery predating the mid-2nd millennium has been found at Asa Koma, an inland lake area on the Gobaad Plain; the site's ware is characterized by punctate and incision geometric designs, which bear a similarity to the Sabir culture phase 1 ceramics from Ma'layba in Southern Arabia. Long-horned humpless cattle bones have been discovered at Asa Koma, suggesting that domesticated cattle were present by around 3,500 years ago. Rock art of what appear to be antelopes and a giraffe are found at Dorra and Balho. Handoga, dated to the fourth millennium BP, has in turn yielded obsidian microliths and plain ceramics used by early nomadic pastoralists with domesticated cattle. Additionally, between Djibouti City and Loyada are a number of phallic stelae; the structures are associated with graves of rectangular shape that are flanked by vertical slabs, as found in central Ethiopia.
The Djibouti-Loyada stelae are of uncertain age, some of them are adorned with a T-shaped symbol. Together with northern Somalia and the Red Sea coast of Sudan, Djibouti is considered the most location of the territory known to the Ancient Egyptians as Punt; the first mention of the Land of Punt dates to the 25th century BC. The Puntites were a nation of people who had close relations with Ancient Egypt during the reign of the 5th dynasty Pharaoh Sahure and the 18th dynasty Queen Hatshepsut. According to the temple murals at Deir el-Bahari, the Land of Punt was ruled at that time by King Parahu and Queen Ati. Through close contacts with the adjacent Arabian Peninsula for more than 1,000 years, the Somali and Afar ethnic groups in the region became among the first populations on the continent to embrace Islam; the Ifat Sultanate was a Muslim medieval kingdom in the Horn of Africa. Founded in 1285 by the Walashma dynasty, it was centered in Zeila. Ifat established bases in Djibouti and northern Somalia, from there expanded southward to the Ahmar Mountains.
Its Sultan Umar Walashma is recorded as hav
Senegal
Senegal the Republic of Senegal, is a country in West Africa. Senegal is bordered by Mauritania in the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast, Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. Senegal borders The Gambia, a country occupying a narrow sliver of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegal's southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. Senegal shares a maritime border with Cape Verde. Senegal's economic and political capital is Dakar; the unitary semi-presidential republic is the westernmost country in the mainland of the Old World, or Afro-Eurasia, owes its name to the Senegal River, which borders it to the east and north. Senegal covers a land area of 197,000 square kilometres and has an estimated population of about 15 million; the climate is Sahelian, though there is a rainy season. From a Portuguese transliteration of the name of the Zenaga known as the Sanhaja, or a combination of the supreme deity in Serer religion and o gal meaning body of water in the Serer language.
Alternatively, the name could derive from the Wolof phrase "Sunuu Gaal," which means "our boat." The territory of modern Senegal has been inhabited by various ethnic groups since prehistory. Organized kingdoms emerged around the seventh century, parts of the country were ruled by prominent regional empires such as the Jolof Empire; the present state of Senegal has its roots in European colonialism, which began during the mid-15th century, when various European powers began competing for trade in the area. The establishment of coastal trading posts led to control of the mainland, culminating in French rule of the area by the 19th century, albeit amid much local resistance. Senegal peacefully attained independence from France in 1960, has since been among the more politically stable countries in Africa. Senegal's economy is centered on commodities and natural resources. Major industries are fish processing, phosphate mining, fertilizer production, petroleum refining, construction materials, ship construction and repair.
As in most African nations, agriculture is a major sector, with Senegal producing several important cash crops, including peanuts, cotton, green beans, tomatoes and mangoes. Owing to its relative stability and hospitality are burgeoning sectors. With it being a multiethnic and secular nation, Senegal is predominantly Sunni Muslim with Sufi and animist influences. French is the official language, although many native languages are recognized. Since April 2012, Senegal's president has been Macky Sall. Senegal has been a member of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie since 1970. Archaeological findings throughout the area indicate that Senegal was inhabited in prehistoric times and has been continuously occupied by various ethnic groups; some kingdoms were created around the 7th century: Takrur in the 9th century and the Jolof Empire during the 13th and 14th centuries. Eastern Senegal was once part of the Ghana Empire. Islam was introduced through Toucouleur and Soninke contact with the Almoravid dynasty of the Maghreb, who in turn propagated it with the help of the Almoravids, Toucouleur allies.
This movement faced resistance from ethnicities of the Serers in particular. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the area came under the influence of the empires to the east. In the Senegambia region, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved as a result of captives taken in warfare. In the 14th century the Jolof Empire grew more powerful, having united Cayor and the kingdoms of Baol, Saloum, Futa Tooro and Bambouk, or much of present-day West Africa; the empire was a voluntary confederacy of various states rather than an empire built on military conquest. The empire was founded by Ndiadiane Ndiaye, a part Serer and part Toucouleur, able to form a coalition with many ethnicities, but collapsed around 1549 with the defeat and killing of Lele Fouli Fak by Amari Ngone Sobel Fall. In the mid-15th century, the Portuguese landed on the Senegal coastline, followed by traders representing other countries, including the French. Various European powers—Portugal, the Netherlands, Great Britain—competed for trade in the area from the 15th century onward.
In 1677, France gained control of what had become a minor departure point in the Atlantic slave trade—the island of Gorée next to modern Dakar, used as a base to purchase slaves from the warring chiefdoms on the mainland. European missionaries introduced Christianity to the Casamance in the 19th century, it was only in the 1850s that the French began to expand onto the Senegalese mainland after they abolished slavery and began promoting an abolitionist doctrine, adding native kingdoms like the Waalo, Cayor and Jolof Empire. French colonists progressively invaded and took over all the kingdoms except Sine and Saloum under Governor Louis Faidherbe. Yoro Dyao was in command of the canton of Foss-Galodjina and was set over Wâlo by Louis Faidherbe, where he served as a chief from 1861 to 1914. Senegalese resistance to the French expansion and curtailing of their lucrative slave trade was led in part by Lat-Dior, Damel of Cayor, Maad a Sinig Kumba Ndoffene Famak Joof, the Maad a Sinig of Sine, resulting in the Battle of Logandème.
On 4 April 1959 Senegal and the French Sudan merged to form the Mali Federation, which became independent on 20 June 1960, as a result of a transfer of power agreement signed with France on 4 April 1960. Due to internal political difficulties, the Federation broke up on 20 August, when
Namibia
Namibia the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. Although it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence, its capital and largest city is Windhoek, it is a member state of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, the Commonwealth of Nations. Namibia, the driest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, was inhabited since early times by the San and Nama peoples. Around the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. Since the Bantu groups, the largest being the Ovambo, have dominated the population of the country. In 1878, the Cape of Good Hope a British colony, had annexed the port of Walvis Bay and the offshore Penguin Islands. In 1884 the German Empire established rule over most of the territory as a protectorate.
It began to develop infrastructure and farming and maintained this German colony until 1915, when South African forces defeated its military. In 1920, after the end of World War I, the League of Nations mandated the country to the United Kingdom, under administration by South Africa, it imposed its laws, including racial rules. From 1948, with the National Party elected to power, South Africa applied apartheid to what was known as South West Africa. In the 20th century and demands for political representation by native African political activists seeking independence resulted in the UN assuming direct responsibility over the territory in 1966, but South Africa maintained de facto rule. In 1973 the UN recognised the South West Africa People's Organisation as the official representative of the Namibian people. Following continued guerrilla warfare, South Africa installed an interim administration in Namibia in 1985. Namibia obtained full independence from South Africa in 1990. However, Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994.
Namibia has a population of a stable multi-party parliamentary democracy. Agriculture, herding and the mining industry – including mining for gem diamonds, gold and base metals – form the basis of its economy; the large, arid Namib Desert has resulted in Namibia being overall one of the least densely populated countries in the world. The name of the country is derived from the Namib Desert, considered to be the oldest desert in the world; the name Namib itself is of Nama origin and means "vast place". Before its independence in 1990, the area was known first as German South-West Africa as South-West Africa, reflecting the colonial occupation by the Germans and the South Africans; the dry lands of Namibia have been inhabited since early times by San and Nama. Around the 14th century, immigrating Bantu people began to arrive during the Bantu expansion from central Africa. From the late 18th century onward, Oorlam people from Cape Colony crossed the Orange River and moved into the area that today is southern Namibia.
Their encounters with the nomadic Nama tribes were peaceful. They received the missionaries accompanying the Oorlam well, granting them the right to use waterholes and grazing against an annual payment. On their way further north, the Oorlam encountered clans of the Herero at Windhoek and Okahandja, who resisted their encroachment; the Nama-Herero War broke out in 1880, with hostilities ebbing only after the German Empire deployed troops to the contested places and cemented the status quo among the Nama and Herero. The first Europeans to disembark and explore the region were the Portuguese navigators Diogo Cão in 1485 and Bartolomeu Dias in 1486, but the Portuguese did not try to claim the area. Like most of interior Sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia was not extensively explored by Europeans until the 19th century. At that time traders and settlers came principally from Sweden. In the late 19th century, Dorsland Trekkers crossed the area on their way from the Transvaal to Angola; some of them settled in Namibia instead of continuing their journey.
Namibia became a German colony in 1884 under Otto von Bismarck to forestall perceived British encroachment and was known as German South West Africa. The Palgrave Commission by the British governor in Cape Town determined that only the natural deep-water harbor of Walvis Bay was worth occupying and thus annexed it to the Cape province of British South Africa. From 1904 to 1907, the Herero and the Namaqua took up arms against brutal German colonialism. In calculated punitive action by the German occupiers, government officials ordered extinction of the natives in the Herero and Namaqua genocide. In what has been called the "first genocide of the 20th century", the Germans systematically killed 10,000 Nama and 65,000 Herero; the survivors, when released from detention, were subjected to a policy of dispossession, forced labor, racial segregation, and
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Data related to Phacochoerus africanus at Wikispecies
Media related to Phacochoerus africanus at Wikimedia Commons
