Geography of South Africa

The central plateau (apart from the Lesotho Highlands) forms a largely flat, tilted surface which, as indicated above, is highest in the east, sloping gently downwards to the west (at about 1,000 m above sea level).

Agriculture, which includes viniculture and fruit-growing, therefore depends on irrigation from rivers with sources in the mountains, which are frequently covered in snow during winter.

The Central Plateau is divided into several distinctly different regions (though with very vague boundaries), largely as a result of the rainfall distribution across South Africa: wet in the east and increasingly drier and more arid in the west.

Its southern boundary is often taken to be the Orange River, from where the continuation of the plateau is known as the Great Karoo, except for a small strip just south of Lesotho which is often included in the Highveld.

Much of the area is devoted to commercial farming, but it also contains South Africa's largest conurbation in Gauteng Province, the centre of the gold mining industry.

This southern limb of the Lowveld is bounded by South Africa's border with Mozambique to the east, and the north-eastern part of the Drakensberg to the west.

Before the middle of the 20th century, the Lowveld was also home to the tsetse fly, which transmits sleeping sickness to humans and nagana to animals, especially the horses of the travelers trying to reach the Highveld and Witwatersrand Gold Fields from Maputo.

This wildlife is particularly concentrated in the Kruger National Park located in the eastern Lowveld areas of Mpumalanga and Limpopo Provinces, along almost the entire border with Mozambique.

The Lowveld partly overlaps with a dry savanna ecoregion known as the Bushveld, a basin characterized by open grasslands with scattered trees and bushes.

The town of Sutherland is located in the Roggeveld region of the Upper Karoo, with midwinter temperatures as low as −15 °C, and is thought to be the coldest inhabited place in South Africa.

The lowland region along the Indian Ocean coast is extremely narrow in the south, widening in the northern part of the province, while the central Natal Midlands consist of an undulating hilly, 1,000 m high plateau, rising to 1,500 m towards the west, at the foot of the Great Escarpment.

The coastal regions are typically covered with subtropical thickets, while the deeper ravines and steep slopes of the river valleys host Afromontane Forest.

The temperature in Ladysmith, further inland, in the Tugela River Valley, reaches 30 °C in the summer, but may drop below freezing point on winter evenings.

Although the veld is too arid to bloom like that of the West Coast of Namaqualand, even when there is some spring rain, what does appear is highly unusual and often hauntingly beautiful.

A highly productive base metal mine on the Aggeneys Farm close to the N14 highway between Upington and Springbok exploits an ore rich in zinc, lead, copper, and silver since 1977.

[11] Vaalputs, a nuclear waste repository, has been sited between Bushmanland and the north-west of the Great Karoo, and acts as a de facto nature reserve.

The town of Alexander Bay is located on the opposite side of the river mouth (i.e. in South Africa) and is linked to Oranjemund by the Ernest Oppenheimer Bridge.

[12] However, about 115 km further inland, in Bushmanland (see above), a large new mine is extracting copper, lead, zinc, and silver from the "Black Mountain" (originally "Swartberg") deposits at Aggeneys since 1977.

Namaqualand is popular with both local and international tourists during early springtime (August - September), when for a short period this normally arid area becomes covered with a kaleidoscope of colour during the flowering season.

[13][14] Its territory includes Marion and Prince Edward Islands, nearly 2,000 km (1,243 mi) south of Cape Town in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean.

Thus the Karoo, which occupies a large part of the western Central Plateau, has a climate which is extremely hot in summer and bitterly cold in winter.

In contrast, the eastern coastline on the Indian Ocean is lush, well watered and warmed by the Mozambique Current; patches of Southern Africa mangroves grow along this coast.

The Cape Peninsula and surrounds have a Mediterranean climate, with cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers (becoming hotter in interior valleys).

The Cape Peninsula has a reputation for its wind: the dry "South-Easter" which blows almost incessantly in summer (December–February), and the "North-Wester" which accompanies the cold fronts that roll in from the Atlantic during winter (June–August).

The eastern section of the Karoo does not extend as far north as the western part, giving way to the flat landscape of the Free State, which – though still semi-arid – receives somewhat more rain.

North of the Vaal River the Highveld is better watered, with an annual rainfall of 760 mm (29.9 in) and a high altitude (around 1,750 m (5,741 ft)) which mitigates the extremes of heat of an inland area at this latitude.

Climate change in South Africa is expected to bring considerable warming and drying to much of this already semi-arid region, with greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, flooding and drought.

In the Port Elizabeth region, national NGO Living Lands had in cooperation with an agricultural insurance company, planted 3.7 million trees as of late 2015, in order to restore the water catchment system and halt erosion.

[18] South Africa has lost a large area of natural habitat in the last four decades, primarily due to overpopulation, sprawling development patterns and deforestation during the 19th century.

South Africa is one of the worst affected countries in the world when it comes to invasion by alien species with many (e.g. black wattle, Port Jackson willow, Hakea, Lantana and Jacaranda) posing a significant threat to the native biodiversity and the already scarce water resources.

The Southern African Central Plateau edged by the Great Escarpment .
Panorama of the Giant's Castle region of the Drakensberg , the highest section of the Great Escarpment. Here the Escarpment is capped by a 1,400 m layer of erosion-resistant lava, which once covered most of Southern Africa 182 million years ago. Only a small remnant of this lava layer remains on the plateau, covering only part of Lesotho , and accounting for the Great Escarpment's great height on the Lesotho / KwaZulu-Natal border.
An approximate SW-NE cross section through South Africa with the Cape Peninsula (with Table Mountain ) on left, and north-eastern KwaZulu-Natal on the right. Diagrammatic and only roughly to scale. It shows the major geological structures (coloured layers) that dominate the southern and eastern parts of the country, as well as the relationship between the Central Plateau, the Cape Fold Mountains , and the Drakensberg escarpment.
A diagrammatic 400 km north–south cross-section through the southern portion of the country near Calitzdorp in the Little Karoo (approximately 21° 30' E), showing the relationship between the Cape Fold Mountains (and their geological structure) and the geology of the Little and Great Karoo , as well as the position of the Great Escarpment . The colour code for the geological layers is the same as those used in the diagram on the left. The heavy black line flanked by opposing arrows is the fault that runs for nearly 300 km along the southern edge of the Swartberg Mountains. The Swartberg Mountain range owes some of its great height to upliftment along this fault line. The subsurface structures are not to scale.
Important geographical regions in South Africa. The thick line traces the course of the Great Escarpment which edges the central plateau. The eastern portion of this line, coloured red, is known as the Drakensberg . The Escarpment rises to its highest point, at over 3,000 m, where the Drakensberg forms the border between KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho . None of the regions indicated on the map have sharp well-defined borders, except where the Escarpment, or a range of mountains forms a clear dividing line between two regions.
Highveld in winter in Gauteng Province north of Johannesburg . The hills in the background are the Magaliesberg , which are generally regarded as the local northern boundary of the Highveld, with the Bushveld beyond.
An elephant in the Kruger National Park in the Lowveld
A map of the Bushveld biome in northeastern South Africa. Being defined botanically, it includes much of the Lowveld , and is therefore more extensive than the geographical region generally termed the Bushveld.
Flat topped hills (called Karoo Koppies) are highly characteristic of the southern and southwestern Great Karoo landscape (especially on the Central Plateau). These hills are capped by hard, erosion resistant dolerite sills . This is solidified lava that was forced under high pressure between the horizontal strata of the sedimentary rocks that make up most of the Karoo's geology . This occurred about 182 million years ago, when huge volumes of lava were extruded over most of Southern Africa and adjoining regions of Gondwana , both on the surface and deep below the surface between the sedimentary strata. The resultant bulging of what later became Southern Africa heralded the break-up of Gondwana. Since this massive extrusion of lava, Southern Africa has undergone a prolonged period of erosion exposing the older softer rocks, except where they were protected by a cap of dolerite. This photograph was taken in the western region of the Upper Karoo near Calvinia . Note the general flatness of the arid plains between the koppies.
Karoo landscape, showing the shrubland that characterizes most of the Karoo. The mountain range in the far distance is the Nuweberg section of the Great Escarpment. The view is from the Lower Karoo looking northwards.
A view of the Mngeni River valley near Howick Falls .
Upland savannah near Pietermaritzburg.
San Lameer Resort
Typical Bushmanland landscape, emphasising its aridity and overall peneplain flatness. The hills in the background are formed by dolerite-like, erosion-resistant intrusions or dykes of unknown, but probably very ancient, age which have partially withstood the erosion of the rest of Bushmanland over the past 150 million ago.
A sociable weavers ' ( Philetairus socius ) nest in a quiver tree (or kokerboom) ( Aloe dichotoma ). Quiver trees only occur in Bushmanland, and neighbouring Namaqualand, and Southern Namibia, usually widely scattered across the arid landscape, but occasionally in dense enough stands to qualify as quiver tree "forests" , for instance on the outskirts of Kenhardt . [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Sociable weaver nests are highly characteristic of Bushmanland, but usually on the telephone poles along the roads. In the absence of telephone poles in the treeless plains of Bushmanland quiver trees are favourite nesting sites for sociable weavers. [ 9 ]
Ventilation shaft erected by the Cape Copper Mining Company in 1880 in Okiep
Spring flowers in Namaqualand
The courses of the warm Agulhas current (red) along the east coast of South Africa, and the cold Benguela current (blue) along the west coast. Note that the Benguela current does not originate from Antarctic waters in the South Atlantic Ocean, but from upwelling of water from the cold depths of the Atlantic Ocean against the west coast of the continent. The two currents do not "meet" anywhere along the south coast of Africa.
The chlorophyll concentration (or plankton density) in the oceans surrounding Southern Africa. Note the very high plankton density (the red colour) in the cold waters off the western coast. The temperature of the water and its fertility is due to its upwelling, along the coast.
South Africa map of Köppen climate classification zones
South Africa's cities and main towns