DesertA desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts".
Kalahari DesertThe Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal desert, whose name is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place". Kalahari is derived from the Tswana word Kgala, meaning "the great thirst", or Kgalagadi, meaning "a waterless place"; the Kalahari has vast areas covered by red sand without any permanent surface water.
DuneA dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat regions covered with wind-swept sand or dunes with little or no vegetation are called ergs or sand seas. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, but most kinds of dunes are longer on the stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and have a shorter slip face in the lee side.
South AfricaSouth Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania.
San peopleThe San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. Their ancestral territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. They speak, or their ancestors spoke, languages of the Khoe, Tuu and Kxʼa language families, and are only a 'people' in contrast to pastoralists such as the Khoekhoe and descendants of more recent waves of immigration such as the Bantu, Europeans and Asians.
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both aspects. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surface area. With billion people as of , it accounts for about of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4.
WindhoekWindhoek (ˈwɪndhʊk, ˈvəntɦuk, ˈvɪnthʊk) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 2020 was 431,000 which is growing continually due to a continued migration from other regions in Namibia. Windhoek is the social, economic, political, and cultural centre of the country. Nearly every Namibian national enterprise, governmental body, educational and cultural institution is headquartered there.
KarooThe Karoo (kəˈruə ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ǃ’Aukarob "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is also not precisely defined. The Karoo is partly defined by its topography, geology and climate, and above all, its low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and extremes of heat and cold. The Karoo also hosted a well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils.
WindWind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hours, to global winds resulting from the difference in absorption of solar energy between the climate zones on Earth. The two main causes of large-scale atmospheric circulation are the differential heating between the equator and the poles, and the rotation of the planet (Coriolis effect).
Atacama DesertThe Atacama Desert (Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau located on the Pacific coast of South America (Argentina and Chile). Stretching over a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of , which increases to if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, and the second driest overall, behind some specific spots within the McMurdo Dry Valleys.
