The Namib ( ; pt, Namibe) is a coastal

desert A 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 on ...

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...

. The name is of

Khoekhoegowab The Khoekhoe language (), also known by the ethnic terms Nama (''Namagowab'') , Damara (''ǂNūkhoegowab''), or Nama/Damara and formerly as Hottentot, is the most widespread of the non-Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy use o ...

origin and means "vast place". According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its 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 and ea ...

, and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, extending southward from the Carunjamba River in Angola, through Namibia and to the Olifants River in Western Cape, South Africa. The Namib's northernmost portion, which extends from the Angola-Namibia border, is known as

Moçâmedes Desert The Moçâmedes Desert is a desert located in the deep southwest of Angola, near the border with Namibia. The desert forms the northern tip of the Namib Desert.The editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Mocamedes-Deser ...

, while its southern portion approaches the neighboring

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal de ...

. From the Atlantic coast eastward, the Namib gradually ascends in elevation, reaching up to inland to the foot of the

Great Escarpment The Great Escarpment is a major topographical feature in Africa that consists of steep slopes from the high central Southern African plateauAtlas of Southern Africa. (1984). p. 13. Reader's Digest Association, Cape Town downward in the directio ...

. Annual precipitation ranges from in the most arid regions to at the escarpment, making the Namib the only true desert in southern Africa. Having endured

arid A region is arid when it severely lacks available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Regions with arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic. Most ar ...

semi-arid A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...

conditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the Namib may be the oldest desert in the world and contains some of the world's driest regions, with only western South America's

Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert ( es, Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the ...

to challenge it for age and aridity benchmarks. The desert geology consists of

sand sea An erg (also sand sea or dune sea, or sand sheet if it lacks dunes) is a broad, flat area of desert covered with wind-swept sand with little or no vegetative cover. The word is derived from the Arabic word ''ʿarq'' (), meaning "dune field". St ...

s near the coast, while gravel plains and scattered mountain outcrops occur further inland. The sand dunes, some of which are high and span long, are the second-largest in the world after the

Badain Jaran Desert The Badain Jaran Desert () is a desert in China which spans the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. It covers an area of . By size it is the third largest desert in China. This desert is home to some of the tallest stationary dunes o ...

dunes in China. Temperatures along the coast are stable and generally range between annually, while temperatures further inland are variable—summer daytime temperatures can exceed while nights can be freezing.

Fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus, and is heavily influ ...

s that originate offshore from the collision of the cold Benguela Current and warm air from the

Hadley Cell The Hadley cell, named after George Hadley, is a global-scale tropical atmospheric circulation that features air rising near the equator, flowing poleward at a height of 10 to 15 kilometers above the earth's surface, descending in the subtropics, ...

create a fog belt that frequently envelops parts of the desert. Coastal regions can experience more than 180 days of thick fog a year. While this has proved a major hazard to ships—more than a thousand wrecks litter the

Skeleton Coast The Skeleton Coast is the northern part of the Atlantic coast of Namibia and south of Angola from the Kunene River south to the Swakop River, although the name is sometimes used to describe the entire Namib Desert coast. The indigenous San p ...

—it is a vital source of moisture for desert life. The Namib is almost completely uninhabited by humans except for several small settlements and indigenous pastoral groups, including the

Ovahimba The Himba (singular: OmuHimba, plural: OvaHimba) are an indigenous people with an estimated population of about 50,000 people living in northern Namibia, in the Kunene Region (formerly Kaokoland) and on the other side of the Kunene River in southe ...

and Obatjimba Herero in the north, and the Topnaar Nama in the central region. Owing to its antiquity, the Namib may be home to more endemic species than any other desert in the world. Most of the desert wildlife is arthropods and other small animals that live on little water, although larger animals inhabit the northern regions. Near the coast, the cold ocean water is rich in fishery resources and supports populations of brown fur seals and shorebirds, which serve as prey for the Skeleton Coast's

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...

s. Further inland, the Namib-Naukluft National Park, the largest game park in Africa, supports populations of

African bush elephant The African bush elephant (''Loxodonta africana'') is one of two extant African elephant species and one of three extant elephant species. It is the largest living terrestrial animal, with bulls reaching a shoulder height of up to and a body ...

s, mountain zebras, and other large mammals. Although the outer Namib is largely barren of vegetation,

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.succulents are found in coastal areas, while grasses, shrubs, and ephemeral plants thrive near the escarpment. Several types of trees are also able to survive the extremely arid climate.

Geography and geology

The Namib Desert is one of the 500 distinct physiographic provinces of the South African Platform physiographic division. It occupies an area of around , stretching from the

Uniab River The Uniab River is an ephemeral river on Namibia Skeleton Coast, located between Torra Bay and Terrace Bay. Its mouth is in the Grootberg Mountains near Palmwag. Inflows of the Uniab are Kaikams, Kawakab, Aub, Urenindes and Obob. The river ...

(north) to the town of Lüderitz (south) and from the Atlantic Ocean (west) to the Namib Escarpment (east). It is about long from north to south and its east–west width varies from . To the north, the desert leads into the

Kaokoveld The Kaokoveld Desert is a coastal desert of northern Namibia and southern Angola. Setting The Kaokoveld Desert occupies a coastal strip covering , from 13° to 21°S and is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Namibian savanna woodla ...

; the dividing line between these two regions is roughly at the latitude of the city of Walvis Bay, and it consists in a narrow strip of land (about 50 km wide) that is the driest place in Southern Africa. To the south, the Namib borders on the

Karoo The Karoo ( ; 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 ext ...

semi-desert. Southern Namib (between Lüderitz and the Kuiseb River) 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 in height. The complexity and regularity of dune patterns in its

dune sea An erg (also sand sea or dune sea, or sand sheet if it lacks dunes) is a broad, flat area of desert covered with wind-swept sand with little or no vegetative cover. The word is derived from the Arabic word ''ʿarq'' (), meaning "dune field". ...

have attracted the attention of geologists for decades, but it remains poorly understood. The source of the unconsolidated sand (the most recent sand sea) has been shown to be dominantly from the Orange River, which drains into the Atlantic south of the Namib Sand Sea, with minor contributions in the east from the (now ephemeral) rivers that drain into the sand sea. For this reason the Namib Sand Sea has been referred to as the "wind displaced delta of the Orange River." Moving north from Sossusvlei, the sand gradually gives way to a rocky desert that extends all the way from Sossusvlei to the Swakop river. This area is traversed by the Tropic of Capricorn and is mostly flat, although some scenic canyons and elevations are found in some areas, for example in the Moon Valley system. While most of the soil is rocky, sand dunes are still occasionally found in this region; for example, sand dunes occupy much of the coastline between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund. The Namib desert is an important location for the mining of tungsten, salt and diamonds. Several rivers and streams run through the Namib, although all of the rivers south of the Cunene River and north of the Orange River are ephemeral and rarely or never reach the ocean. These rivers arise in the interior mountains of Namibia and flow after summer rain storms.

Climate

The Namib's aridity is caused by the descent of dry air of the

, cooled by the cold Benguela current along the coast. It has less than of rain annually and is almost completely barren. Besides rain being scarce, it is also unpredictable. The western Namib gets less rain (5 mm) than the eastern Namib (85 mm). This is due to several factors. Winds coming from the Indian Ocean lose part of their humidity when passing the Drakensberg mountains, and are essentially dry when they reach the Namib Escarpment at the eastern end of the desert. Winds coming from the Atlantic Ocean, on the other hand, are pressed down by hot air from the east; their humidity thus forms clouds and fog. Morning fogs coming from the ocean and pushing inwards into the desert are a regular phenomenon along the coast, and much of the life cycle of animals and plants in the Namib relies on these fogs as the main source of water. Namib desert 5

The dry climate of the Namib reflects the almost complete lack of bodies of water on the surface. Most rivers flow underground and/or are dry for most of the year. Even when they are not, they usually drain into endorheic basins, without reaching the sea. The Swakop and the Omaruru are the only rivers that occasionally drain into the ocean. All along the coast, but mostly in the northernmost part of it, interaction between the water-laden air coming from the sea via southerly winds, some of the strongest of any coastal desert, and the dry air of the desert causes immense

fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus, and is heavily influ ...

s and strong currents. It causes sailors to lose their way; this is testified by the remnants of a number of

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

s that can be found along the

, in northern Namib. Some of these wrecked ships can be found as much as inland, as the desert slowly moves westwards into the sea, reclaiming land over a period of many years. Benguela's El Niño (similar to the Pacific event in its environmental change in the seas) spreads from the Kunene estuary southward to, on occasion, south of Luderitz. Warm waters with depth and associated water flows from the northwest were first fully catalogued by Sea Fisheries researchers, Cape Town (L V Shannon ''et al.''). The research noted the positive effect of Benguela's El Niño on the rainfall of the interior. Rainfall records also show positive values variously across the Namib, Desert Research Station, Gobabeb for instance. This event recurs approximately mid-decade (1974, 1986, 1994, 1995 and 2006 are recent examples).

Plants and animals

Flora

A number of unusual species of plants and animals are found in this desert, many of which are endemic and highly adapted to the specific climate of the area. One of the most well-known endemic plants of the Namib is the bizarre '' Welwitschia mirabilis''; a shrub-like plant, it grows two long strap-shaped leaves continuously throughout its lifetime. These leaves may be several meters long, gnarled and twisted from the desert winds. The taproot of the plant develops into a flat, concave disc in age. ''Welwitschia'' is notable for its survival in the extremely arid conditions in the Namib, mostly deriving moisture from the coastal sea fogs. An area where ''Welwitschias'' are a common sight is found in the surroundings of the Moon Valley, including the eponymous Welwitschia Plains. File:Quiver trees, Namib Desert.jpg, alt=, Quiver trees found within Namib desert

Fauna

File:Oryx Gazella Namib Desert.jpg, alt=,

Gemsbok The gemsbok or South African oryx (''Oryx gazella'') is a large antelope in the genus ''Oryx''. It is native to the extremely dry, arid regions of Southern Africa; notably, the Kalahari Desert. Some authorities formerly classified the East Afric ...

s ('' Oryx gazella'') are the biggest

antelope The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon defined as any of numerous Old World grazing and browsing hoofed mammals ...

s found in the Namib desert The Namib fauna mostly comprises arthropods and other small animals that can live on little water, but a few species of bigger animals are also found, including

s (such as

gemsbok The gemsbok or South African oryx (''Oryx gazella'') is a large antelope in the genus ''Oryx''. It is native to the extremely dry, arid regions of Southern Africa; notably, the Kalahari Desert. Some authorities formerly classified the East Afric ...

s and springboks), ostriches, and in some areas even

desert elephant Desert elephants or desert-adapted elephants are not a distinct species of elephant but are African bush elephants (''Loxodonta africana'') that have made their homes in the Namib and Sahara deserts in Africa. At one time they were classified as ...

s. All these species have developed techniques to survive in the Namib environment. A number of endemic darkling beetles species — such as the

Namib Desert beetle ''Stenocara gracilipes'' is a species of beetle that is native to the Namib Desert in southern Africa. This is one of the most arid areas of the world, receiving only of rain per year. The beetle is able to survive by collecting water on its ...

— have bumpy elytrons with a pattern of hydrophilic bumps and hydrophobic troughs. These cause humidity from the morning fogs to condense into droplets, which roll down the beetle's back to its mouth; they are collectively known as "fog beetles". Another beetle, the ''Lepidochora discoidalis'', builds "water-capturing" webs.

Black-backed jackal The black-backed jackal (''Lupulella mesomelas),'' also called the silver-backed jackal, is a medium-sized canine native to eastern and southern Africa. These regions are separated by roughly 900 kilometers. One region includes the southe ...

s lick humidity from stones. Gemsboks (also known as the South African oryx) can raise the temperature of their bodies to 40 °C in the hottest hours of the day. The desert is also home to

meerkat MeerKAT, originally the Karoo Array Telescope, is a radio telescope consisting of 64 antennas in the Meerkat National Park, in the Northern Cape of South Africa. In 2003, South Africa submitted an expression of interest to host the Square Kilom ...

s and several species of lizards.

Human activity

Before the 20th century, some San roamed the Namib, gathering edible plants on the shore, hunting in the interior, and drinking the juice of the tsamma melon for water. Today, some

Herero Herero may refer to: * Herero people, a people belonging to the Bantu group, with about 240,000 members alive today * Herero language, a language of the Bantu family (Niger-Congo group) * Herero and Namaqua Genocide * Herero chat, a species of b ...

still herd their livestock in the

in the Namib and take them from waterhole to waterhole. A few Nama Khoikhoi still graze their livestock on the banks of the Kuiseb River in the desert. Most of the native people have left, however, leaving the vast majority of the desert uninhabited. The steppes in the southern half of the desert are mostly made up of ranches run by Europeans, who raise Karakul sheep with local help and send the pelts of the lambs to Europe for use in fur coats. Most of the rest of the desert is set aside for conservation. A vast portion of the desert, called the Sperrgebiet, was access-restricted due to the presence of diamonds, which are mined in the area at the mouth of the Orange River. Although the desert is largely unpopulated and inaccessible, there are year-round settlements at

Sesriem Sesriem is a small settlement in the Namib Desert, in the Hardap Region of Namibia, close to the southern end of the Naukluft Mountains. It is especially known because the "Sesriem gate" is the main access point to the Namib-Naukluft National Par ...

, close to the famous Sossusvlei area, and other small outposts in other locations. Moçâmedes in Angola, and Lüderitz, Walvis Bay and Swakopmund in Namibia, bordering on the desert, are the main settlements in the area. The 2015 film '' Mad Max: Fury Road'' was filmed here. In 2019 the Namibian-German artist

Max Siedentopf Maximilian "Max" Siedentopf (born 27 June 1991) is a Namibian-German artist, designer, publisher and director. He is known for having set up an installation titled ''Toto Forever'' in the Namib Desert which consists of a ring of large white bloc ...

created an installation in the Namib consisting of a ring of large white blocks atop of which sit six speakers attached to a solar-powered

MP3 player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...

configured to continuously play the 1982 song " Africa" by the American band

Toto Toto may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters Pets * Toto (Oz), Toto (''Oz''), a dog in the novel and film ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' * Toto, in Japanese ''The Cat Returns#Plot, The Cat Returns'' Characters of agency * a ...

. The exact location of the installation has not been disclosed.

Namib-Naukluft National Park

The Namib-Naukluft National Park, that extends over a large part of the Namib Desert, is the largest game reserve in Africa and one of the largest of the world. While most of the park is hardly accessible, several well-known visitor attractions are found in the desert. The prominent attraction is the famous Sossusvlei area, where high orange sand dunes surround vivid white salt pans, creating a fascinating landscape. Access to the park is either by gravel roads or dust roads (except for 60 km of

concrete road Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

from the

gate to Sossusvlei) or by light aircraft from Windhoek (the capital of Namibia, about northeast of the centre of the desert), or Swakopmund and Walvis Bay at the north end of the desert.

Notable places

Bogenfels Bogenfels is a location in the coastal Namib Desert of Namibia, noted for its natural rock formations (hence the name, which means "arch rock" in German). The main formation is a high rock arch close to the coast. It is not easily accessible, d ...

Solitaire Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself, usually with cards, but also with dominoes. The term "solitaire" is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout tiles, pegs or stones. These game ...

* Sossusvlei **

Deadvlei Deadvlei is a white clay pan located near the more famous salt pan of Sossusvlei, inside the Namib-Naukluft Park in Namibia. Also written DeadVlei or Dead Vlei, its name means "dead marsh" (from English ''dead'', and Afrikaans ''vlei'', a lake or ...

Dune 45 Dune 45 is a star dune in the Sossusvlei area of the Namib Desert in Namibia. Its name comes from the fact that it is at the 45th kilometre of the road that connects the Sesriem gate and Sossusvlei. Standing over 170 m,https://sossusvlei.com/ i ...

Spitzkoppe The Spitzkoppe (from German for ''"pointed dome"''; also referred to as Spitzkop, Groot Spitzkop, or the "Matterhorn of Namibia") is a group of bald granite peaks or inselbergs located between Usakos and Swakopmund in the Namib desert of Nam ...

* Swakopmund

References

* ''National Geographic'', January 1992, pp. 54–85. * Mary Seely: ''The Namib: Natural History of an Ancient Desert'', 3rd ed., Windhoek: Desert Research Foundation of Namibia 2004, .

External links

*
Namib Naukluft Park photo gallery

{{Authority control Deserts of Namibia Deserts of South Africa Afrotropical ecoregions Ergs of Africa Physiographic provinces World Heritage Sites in Namibia Namib-Naukluft National Park First 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites