Red Line (Namibia)

The demarcation was created in 1896 in the hope of containing a rinderpest outbreak in the Imperial German colony of South West Africa.

[3] Fort Namutoni was built as a police station to control north–south travel of the indigenous population and their livestock.

[4]The demarcation became a political boundary in 1907, after the Reichstag in Berlin passed a resolution in 1905 during the Herero Wars stating that police protection in German South West Africa "should be restricted to the smallest possible area focusing on those regions where our economic interests tend to coalesce".

The excluded northern areas were largely left to indirect colonial rule through traditional authorities.

A physical fence was only built in the early 1960s, and from then on used to isolate foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in the North from the farms in the South.

it runs north of Palmwag, past Okaukuejo, along the southern border of the Etosha Pan, through Tsintsabis and eastwards to Otjituuo (east of Grootfontein).

Livestock north of the Red Lines may not be sold overseas, while farmers in the South can sell their meat anywhere.

Since this line has been deeply embedded in political and historical issues, the government has proposed uprooting it to the Angolan border.