Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Zambia (via the Caprivi Strip) and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the south; in the northeast, approximating a quadripoint, Zimbabwe lies less than 200 metres (660 ft) away along the Zambezi river near Kazungula, Zambia. Namibia's capital and largest city is Windhoek.
Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, and has been inhabited since prehistoric times by the Khoi, San, Damara and Nama people. Around the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. From 1600, the Owambo formed kingdoms, such as Ondonga and Oukwanyama. In 1884, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory, forming a colony known as German South West Africa. Between 1904–08, German troops waged a punitive campaign against the Herero and Nama which escalated into the first genocide of the 20th century. German rule ended during the First World War with a 1915 defeat by South African forces. In 2021, German and Namibian diplomats created a "reconciliation agreement" acknowledging atrocities from the German colonial period.
In 1920, the League of Nations mandated administration of the colony to South Africa. The National Party, elected to power in 1948 in South Africa, applied apartheid to what was then known as South West Africa. Uprisings and demands for political representation resulted in the United Nations assuming direct responsibility over the territory in 1966, but South Africa maintained de facto rule until 1973. That year the UN recognised the South West Africa People's Organisation, SWAPO, as the official representative of the Namibian people. Namibia gained independence from South Africa in March 1990, following the South African Border War. However, Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994.
Namibia is a parliamentary democracy. Agriculture, tourism and the mining industry – including mining for diamonds, uranium, gold, silver and base metals – form the basis of its economy, while the manufacturing sector is comparatively small. Despite significant GDP growth since its independence, poverty and inequality remain significant. 41% of the population is affected by multidimensional poverty, and more than 400,000 people live in informal housing. Income disparity is one of the world's highest with a Gini coefficient of 59 in 2015.
With a population of 3.1 million people, Namibia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. Since the end of the Cold War, it has attracted notable immigration from Germany, Angola, and Zimbabwe. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the Commonwealth of Nations.
The name of the country is derived from the Namib desert, the oldest desert in the world. The word Namib itself is of Khoi origin and means "vast place". The name was chosen by Mburumba Kerina, who originally proposed "Republic of Namib". Before Namibia became independent in 1990, its territory was known first as German South-West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika), and then as South West Africa, reflecting its colonial occupation by Germans and South Africans, respectively.
"The dry lands of Namibia have been inhabited since prehistoric times by the San, Damara, and Nama. For thousands of years, the Khoisan peoples of Southern Africa maintained a nomadic life, the Khoikhoi as pastoralists and the San people as hunter-gatherers. 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 the Dutch Cape Colony crossed the Orange River and moved into the area that today is southern Namibia. Their encounters with the nomadic Nama tribes were largely peaceful. They received the missionaries accompanying the Oorlam very well, granting them the right to use waterholes and grazing against an annual payment. On their way further north, however, the Oorlam encountered clans of the OvaHerero 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 contested places and cemented the status quo among the Nama, Oorlam, and Herero.
In 1878, the Cape of Good Hope, then a British colony, annexed the port of Walvis Bay and the offshore Penguin Islands; these became an integral part of the new Union of South Africa at its creation in 1910.
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 the interior of Sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia was not extensively explored by Europeans until the 19th century. At that time traders and settlers came principally from Germany and Sweden. In 1870, Finnish missionaries came to the northern part of Namibia to spread the Lutheran religion among the Owambo and Kavango people. 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 (Deutsch-Südwestafrika). The Palgrave Commission by the British governor in Cape Town determined that only the natural deep-water harbour of Walvis Bay was worth occupying and thus annexed it to the Cape province of British South Africa.
In 1897, a rinderpest epidemic caused massive cattle die-offs of an estimated 95% of cattle in southern and central Namibia. In response the German colonisers set up a veterinary cordon fence known as the Red Line. In 1907, this fence then broadly defined the boundaries for the first Police Zone.
From 1904 to 1907, the Herero and the Nama took up arms against ruthless German settlers. In a calculated punitive action by the German settlers, government officials ordered the extinction of the natives in the OvaHerero and Nama genocide. In what has been called the "first genocide of the 20th century", the Germans systematically killed 10,000 Nama (half the population) and approximately 65,000 Herero (about 80% of the population). Released from detention, the survivors faced a system of forced labor, deportation, and apartheid-like segregation that foreshadowed South Africa's 1948 policy. Most Africans were confined to so-called native territories, which under South African rule after 1949 were turned into "homelands" (Bantustans).
Some historians have speculated that the downfall of the Herero in Namibia was a model for the Nazis in the Holocaust. The memory of what happened under German rule has contributed to shape the ethnic identity in independent Namibia and has kept its significance in today's relations with Germany.
The German minister for development aid apologised for the Namibian genocide in 2004. However, the German government distanced itself from this apology. Only in 2021 did the German government acknowledge the genocide and agree to pay €1.1 billion over 30 years in community aid.
During World War I, South African troops under General Louis Botha occupied the territory and deposed the German colonial administration. The end of the war and the Treaty of Versailles resulted in South West Africa remaining a possession of South Africa, at first as a League of Nations mandate, until 1990. The mandate system was formed as a compromise between those who advocated an allied annexation of former German and Ottoman territories and a proposition put forward by those who wished to grant them to an international trusteeship until they could govern themselves. It permitted the South African government to administer South West Africa until that territory's inhabitants were prepared for political self-determination. South Africa interpreted the mandate as a veiled annexation and made no attempt to prepare South West Africa for future autonomy.