1.
NASA World Wind
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World Wind is an open-source virtual globe first developed by NASA in 2003 for use on personal computers and then further developed in concert with the open source community since 2004. As of 2017 a web based version of World Wind is available online, the original version relied on. NET Framework, which ran only on Microsoft Windows. The SDK includes a suite of basic demos, available at goworldwind. org, the World Wind Java version was awarded NASA Software of the Year in November 2009. The program overlays NASA and USGS satellite imagery, aerial photography, topographic maps, Keyhole Markup Language, though widely available since 2003, World Wind was released with the NASA Open Source Agreement license in 2004. The latest Java-based version, was released in December 2016, as of 2015 a web based version of World Wind is under development and available online. An Android version is also available, the previous. NET-based version was an application with an extensive suite of plugins. Apart from the Earth there are worlds, Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter. Users could interact with the planet by rotating it, tilting the view. Five million place names, political boundaries, latitude/longitude lines, World Wind. NET provided the ability to browse maps and geospatial data on the internet using the OGCs WMS servers, import ESRI shapefiles and kml/kmz files. This is an example of how World Wind allows anyone to deliver their data, other features of World Wind. NET included support for. X models and advanced visual effects such as atmospheric scattering or sun shading. The resolution inside the US is high enough to discern individual buildings, houses, cars. The resolution outside the US is at least 15 meters per pixel, Microsoft has allowed World Wind to incorporate Virtual Earth high resolution data for non-commercial use. World Wind uses digital elevation model data collected by NASAs Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, National Elevation Dataset and this means one can view topographic features such as the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest in three dimensions. In addition, WW has bathymetry data which allows users to see ocean features, such as trenches and ridges, in 3D. Many people using the applications are adding their own data and are making them available through various sources, such as the World Wind Central or blogs mentioned in the link section below. All images and movies created with World Wind using Blue Marble, Landsat, or USGS public domain data can be modified, re-distributed. World Wind can be expanded by using one of many add-ons - small extensions that add new functionality to the program, plug-in developers can add features to World Wind without changing the programs source code. The original recipe for World Wind was restricted to Windows, relying on the. NET libraries, a new SDK version has been developed in Java with JOGL referred to as World Wind Java
2.
Botswana
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Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens refer to themselves as Batswana, formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. Since then, it has maintained a tradition of stable representative democracy. Botswana is topographically flat, with up to 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert and it is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. Its border with Zambia to the north near Kazungula is poorly defined, a mid-sized country of just over 2 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated nations in the world. Around 10 percent of the lives in the capital and largest city. The economy is dominated by mining, cattle, and tourism, Botswana boasts a GDP per capita of about $18,825 per year as of 2015, which is one of the highest in Africa. Its high gross national income gives the country a modest standard of living, Botswana is a member of the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the United Nations. The country has been among the hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the death rate due to AIDS or AIDS-related causes has fallen sharply from 2005 to 2013, and the number of new infections in children has also fallen. As of 2014, Botswana has the third-highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, the history of Botswana starts more than 100,000 years ago, when the first humans inhabited the region. The original inhabitants of southern Africa were the Bushmen and Khoi peoples, both speak Khoisan languages and lived as hunter-gatherers. About a thousand years ago, large chiefdoms emerged that were later eclipsed by the Great Zimbabwe empire, around 1300 CE, peoples in present-day Transvaal began to coalesce into three main linguistic and political groups, including the Batswana. The Batswana, a term used also to all citizens of Botswana. Prior to European contact, the Batswana lived as herders and farmers under tribal rule, as groups broke off and moved to new land, new tribes were created. Some human development occurred before the colonial period, during the 1700s, the slave and ivory trades were expanding. To resist these pressures, Shaka, the king of the Zulu Empire, conquered tribes began to move northwest into Botswana, destroying everything in their path. In their efforts to re-establish themselves at the end of period, tribes began to exchange ivory and skins for guns with European traders. Christian missionaries sent from Europe also spread to the interior, often at the invitation of tribal chiefs who wanted guns, by 1880 every major village had a resident missionary, and their influence became permanent
3.
Namibia
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Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south, although it does not border Zimbabwe, a part of 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, and it is a state of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union. The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by the San, Damara, since about the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. Since then the Bantu groups in total, known as the Ovambo people, have dominated the population of the country, in the late 19th century during European colonization, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory as a protectorate in 1884. It began to develop infrastructure and farming, and maintained this German colony until 1915, after the end of World War I, in 1920 the League of Nations mandated the country to the United Kingdom, under administration by South Africa. It imposed its laws, including racial classifications and rules, from 1948, with the National Party elected to power, South Africa applied apartheid also to what was known as South West Africa. In 1878 the Cape of Good Hope had annexed the port of Walvis Bay and the offshore Penguin Islands, following continued guerrilla warfare, South Africa installed an interim administration in Namibia in 1985. Namibia obtained full independence from South Africa in 1990, but Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994. Namibia has a population of 2.1 million people and a stable multi-party parliamentary democracy, Agriculture, herding, tourism and the mining industry – including mining for gem diamonds, uranium, gold, silver, 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, Namibia enjoys high political, economic and social stability. The name of the country is derived from the Namib Desert, before its independence in 1990, the area was known first as German South-West Africa, then as South-West Africa, reflecting the colonial occupation by the Germans and the South Africans. The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by San, Damara, from about the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived during the Bantu expansion from central Africa. From the late 18th century onwards, Oorlam people from Cape Colony crossed the Orange River and their encounters with the nomadic Nama tribes were largely peaceful. The missionaries accompanying the Oorlam were well received by them, the right to use waterholes, on their way further northwards, however, the Oorlam encountered clans of the Herero at Windhoek, Gobabis, 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 places and cemented the status quo among the Nama, Oorlam. The first Europeans to disembark and explore the region were the Portuguese navigators Diogo Cão in 1485 and Bartolomeu Dias in 1486, like most of interior Sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia was not extensively explored by Europeans until the 19th century
4.
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
5.
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
6.
Vachellia erioloba
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Vachellia erioloba (camel thorn, giraffe thorn is a tree of southern Africa in the family Fabaceae. Its preferred habitat is the dry sandy soils in parts of South Africa, Botswana. It is also native to Angola, south-west Mozambique, Zambia, the tree was first described by Ernst Heinrich Friedrich Meyer and Johann Franz Drège in 1836. The camel thorn is a tree in South Africa. The tree can grow up to 17 metres high and it is slow-growing, very hardy to drought and fairly frost-resistant. The wood is dark reddish-brown in colour and extremely dense and strong and it is a good for fires, which leads to widespread clearing of dead trees and the felling of healthy trees. It produces ear-shaped pods, favoured by a number of herbivores including cattle. The seeds can be roasted and used as a substitute for coffee beans, the name camel thorn refers to the fact that giraffe commonly feed on the leaves with their specially-adapted tongue and lips that can avoid the thorns. The scientific name erioloba means wooly lobe, a reference to the ear-shaped pods Dressler, S. Schmidt, M. & Zizka, african plants – a Photo Guide
7.
Savanna
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A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support a herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density and it is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests. Savanna covers approximately 20% of the Earths land area, the word originally entered English in 1555 as the Latin Zauana, equivalent in the orthography of the times to zavana. Peter Martyr reported it as the name for the plain around Comagre. The accounts are inexact, but this is placed in present-day Madugandí or at points on the nearby Guna Yala coast opposite Ustupo or on Point Mosquitos. These areas are now given over to modern cropland or jungle. The common usage meaning to describe vegetation now conflicts with a simplified yet widespread climatic concept meaning, the divergence has sometimes caused areas such as extensive savannas north and south of the Congo and Amazon Rivers to be excluded from mapped savanna categories. Barrens has been used almost interchangeably with savanna in different parts of North America, sometimes midwestern savanna were described as grassland with trees. Different authors have defined the limits of savanna tree coverage as 5–10%. Two factors common to all environments are rainfall variations from year to year. In the Americas, e. g. in Belize, Central America, savanna vegetation is similar from Mexico to South America, savannas are subject to regular wildfires and the ecosystem appears to be the result of human use of fire. For example, Native Americans created the Pre-Columbian savannas of North America by periodically burning where fire-resistant plants were the dominant species, pine barrens in scattered locations from New Jersey to coastal New England are remnants of these savannas. Aboriginal burning appears to have responsible for the widespread occurrence of savanna in tropical Australia and New Guinea. The maquis shrub savannas of the Mediterranean region were created and maintained by anthropogenic fire. These fires are usually confined to the layer and do little long term damage to mature trees. However, these either kill or suppress tree seedlings, thus preventing the establishment of a continuous tree canopy which would prevent further grass growth
8.
Etosha pan
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The Etosha pan is a large endorheic salt pan, forming part of the Kalahari Basin in the north of Namibia. The 120-kilometre-long dry lakebed and its surroundings are protected as Etosha National Park, Etosha, meaning Great White Place is made of a large mineral pan. The area exhibits a white and greenish surface, which spreads over 4,800 km2. The pan developed through tectonic plate activity over about ten million years, around 16,000 years ago, when ice sheets were melting across the land masses of the Northern Hemisphere, a wet climate phase in southern Africa filled Etosha Lake. Today however the Etosha Pan is mostly dry clay mud split into hexagonal shapes as it dries and cracks, and is seldom seen with even a thin sheet of water covering it. It is assumed that the Cunene River fed the lake at that time, now the Ekuma River, the Oshigambo River and the Omurambo Ovambo River are the sole seasonal source of water for the lake. Typically, little water or sediment reaches the dry lake because water seeps into the riverbed along its 250-kilometre course. In the colonial era, the first non-Africans to explore this area were the Europeans Charles John Andersson, the surrounding area is dense mopane woodland which is occupied by herds of elephants on the south side of the lake. Mopane trees are common throughout south-central Africa, and host the mopane worm, which is the form of the moth Gonimbrasia belina. Away from the lake there is grassland that supports grazing animals and this harsh dry land with little vegetation and small amounts of salty water, when it is present at all, supports little wildlife all year round but is used by a large number of migratory birds. The hypersaline pan supports brine shrimp and a number of extremophile micro-organisms tolerant of the saline conditions. In particularly rainy years the Etosha pan becomes a lake approximately 10 cm in depth and becomes a ground for flamingos, which arrive in their thousands. The surrounding savanna is home to a number of mammals that will visit the pan and these include quite large numbers of zebra, blue wildebeest, gemsbok, eland and springbok as well as black rhinoceros, elephants, lions, leopards, and giraffe. The Etosha pan is completely within the park and is designated as a Ramsar wetland of international importance. Ekuma River and Etosha Pan, Namibia, National Council for Science and the Environment, Washington DC Etosha Pan halophytics
9.
River delta
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A river delta is a landform that forms from deposition of sediment carried by a river as the flow leaves its mouth and enters slower-moving or standing water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, River deltas are ecologically important as they provide coastline defense, are home to many species, and can impact drinking water supply. The tidal currents also cannot be too strong, as sediment would wash out into the body faster than the river deposits it. Of course, the river must carry enough sediment to layer into deltas over time, the rivers velocity decreases rapidly, causing it to deposit the majority, if not all, of its load. This alluvium builds up to form the river delta, when the flow enters the standing water, it is no longer confined to its channel and expands in width. This flow expansion results in a decrease in the flow velocity, as a result, sediment drops out of the flow and deposits. Over time, this single channel builds a deltaic lobe, pushing its mouth into the standing water, as the deltaic lobe advances, the gradient of the river channel becomes lower because the river channel is longer but has the same change in elevation. As the slope of the channel decreases, it becomes unstable for two reasons. First, gravity makes the flow in the most direct course down slope. If the river breaches its natural levees, it out onto a new course with a shorter route to the ocean. Second, as its slope gets lower, the amount of stress on the bed decreases, which results in deposition of sediment within the channel. This makes it easier for the river to breach its levees, often when the channel does this, some of its flow remains in the abandoned channel. When these channel-switching events occur, a mature delta develops a distributary network, another way these distributary networks form is from deposition of mouth bars. When this mid-channel bar is deposited at the mouth of a river and this results in additional deposition on the upstream end of the mouth-bar, which splits the river into two distributary channels. A good example of the result of this process is the Wax Lake Delta, in both of these cases, depositional processes force redistribution of deposition from areas of high deposition to areas of low deposition. This results in the smoothing of the shape of the delta as the channels move across its surface. Because the sediment is laid down in fashion, the shape of these deltas approximates a fan. The more often the flow changes course, the shape develops as closer to an ideal fan, the Mississippi and Ural River deltas, with their birds-feet, are examples of rivers that do not avulse often enough to form a symmetrical fan shape
10.
Namib
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The Namib is a coastal desert in southern Africa. The name Namib is of Nama origin and means vast place, the Namibs northernmost portion, which extends 450 kilometres from the Angola-Namibia border, is known as Moçâmedes Desert, while its southern portion approaches the neighboring Kalahari Desert. From the Atlantic coast eastward, the Namib gradually ascends in elevation, annual precipitation ranges from 2 millimetres in the most arid regions to 200 millimetres at the escarpment, making the Namib the only true desert in southern Africa. Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the desert geology consists of sand seas near the coast, while gravel plains and scattered mountain outcrops occur further inland. The sand dunes, some of which are 300 metres high, fogs that originate offshore from the collision of the cold Benguela Current and warm air from the Hadley Cell create a fog belt that frequently envelops parts of the desert. Coastal regions can experience more than 180 days of fog a year. While this has proved a hazard to ships—more than a thousand wrecks litter the Skeleton Coast—it is a vital source of moisture for desert life. Owing to its antiquity, the Namib may be home to endemic species than any other desert in the world. Most of the wildlife is arthropods and other small animals that live on little water. Near the coast, the ocean water is rich in fishery resources and supports populations of brown fur seals and shorebirds. Further inland, the Namib-Naukluft National Park, the largest game park in Africa, supports populations of African Bush Elephants, Mountain Zebras, and other large mammals. Although the outer Namib is largely barren of vegetation, lichens and succulents are found in areas, while grasses, shrubs. A few types of trees are able to survive the extremely arid climate. The Namib Desert is one of the 500 distinct physiographic provinces of the South African Platform physiographic division and it occupies an area of around 80,950 km², stretching from the[Usiab River to the town of Lüderitz and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Namib Escarpment. It is about 1,000 miles long north to south. To the south, the Namib borders on the South African Karoo semi-desert, southern Namib comprises a vast dune sea with some of the tallest and most spectacular dunes of the world, ranging in color from pink to vivid orange. In the Sossusvlei area, several dunes exceed 300 meters in height, the complexity and regularity of dune patterns in its dune sea have attracted the attention of geologists for decades, but it remains poorly understood. Moving north from Sossusvlei, the sand gradually gives way to a desert that extends all the way from Sossusvlei to the Swakop river
11.
Angola
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Angola /æŋˈɡoʊlə/, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country in Southern Africa. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa and is bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to west. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo, the capital and largest city of Angola is Luanda. In the 19th century, European settlers slowly and hesitantly began to themselves in the interior. As a Portuguese colony, Angola did not encompass its present borders until the early 20th century, following resistance by groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda. Independence was achieved in 1975 under a communist one-party state backed by the Soviet Union, however, the country soon descended into an even lengthier civil war that lasted until 2002. It has since become a relatively stable presidential republic. Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy is among the fastest growing in the world, Angolas economic growth is highly uneven, with the majority of the nations wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population. Angola is a state of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Latin Union. A highly multiethnic country, Angolas 25.8 million people span various tribal groups, customs, Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, namely in the predominance of the Portuguese language and the Catholic Church, combined with diverse indigenous influences. The name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola, the toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo. Ndongo was a kingdom in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, nominally tributary to the king of Kongo but which was seeking greater independence during the 16th century, modern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San prior to the first Bantu migrations. The Khoi and San peoples were neither pastoralists nor cultivators, following a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and they were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north, some of whom likely originated in northwestern Nigeria. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as large herds, to Angolas central highlands. During this time, the Bantu established a number of entities in most of what today comprises Angola. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the later Portuguese colony was known as Dongo. The region now known as Angola was reached by the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão in 1484, the year before, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The Portuguese established their primary trading post at Soyo, which is now the northernmost city in Angola apart from the Cabinda exclave
12.
Zambia
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The capital city is Lusaka, in the south-central part of Zambia. The population is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the northwest, originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region was affected by the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth century. After visits by European explorers in the century, Zambia became the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia towards the end of the nineteenth century. For most of the period, Zambia was governed by an administration appointed from London with the advice of the British South Africa Company. On 24 October 1964, Zambia became independent of the United Kingdom, Kaundas socialist United National Independence Party maintained power from 1964 until 1991. Kaunda played a key role in diplomacy, cooperating closely with the United States in search of solutions to conflicts in Rhodesia, Angola. From 1972 to 1991 Zambia was a one-party state with the UNIP as the legal political party under the motto One Zambia. Kaunda was succeeded by Frederick Chiluba of the social-democratic Movement for Multi-Party Democracy in 1991, beginning a period of social-economic growth, after Mwanawasas death, Rupiah Banda presided as Acting President before being elected President in 2008. Holding office for three years, Banda stepped down after his defeat in the 2011 elections by Patriotic Front party leader Michael Sata. Sata died on 28 October 2014, the second Zambian president to die in office, Guy Scott served briefly as interim president until new elections were held on 20 January 2015, in which Edgar Lungu was elected as the sixth President. In 2010, the World Bank named Zambia one of the worlds fastest economically reformed countries, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is headquartered in Lusaka. The territory of what is now Zambia was known as Northern Rhodesia from 1911 and it was renamed Zambia at independence in 1964. The new name of Zambia was derived from the Zambezi river, the area of modern Zambia is known to have been inhabited by the Khoisan until around AD300, when migrating Bantu began to settle around these areas. These early hunter-gatherer groups were either annihilated or absorbed by subsequent more organised Bantu groups. Archaeological excavation work on the Zambezi Valley and Kalambo Falls show a succession of human cultures, in particular, ancient camping site tools near the Kalambo Falls have been radiocarbon dated to more than 36,000 year ago. The fossil skull remains of Broken Hill Man, dated between 300,000 and 125,000 years BC, further shows that the area was inhabited by pre-historic man. The early history of tribes of modern-day Zambia can only be gleaned from knowledge passed down by successive generations through word of mouth, in the 12th century, major waves of Bantu-speaking immigrants arrived during the Bantu expansion. Among them, the Tonga people were the first to settle in Zambia and are believed to have come from the east near the big sea, by the late 12th century, more advanced kingdoms and empires had been established in most regions of modern-day Zambia
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