Namibia: Africa’s Empty Frontier
About this episode
This episode explores the vast and sparsely populated country of Namibia, its history, and demographics.
Namibia sits on the south-west coast of Africa. Below Angola, above South Africa, with Botswana to the east. Portuguese explorers first reached the coast here in the 1480s. No natural harbour, brutal surf, cold Atlantic fog, the Namib Desert running straight into the sea, little access to fresh water. They planted crosses to mark their claims, turned around and went home again, never to return. Today that coast is known as the Skeleton Coast because of shipwrecks and whale bones. Three hundred years later, having decided there was too much tropical disease in Gambia, the British looked at Namibia as a possible penal colony. They decided it was too inhumane. It was Germans and Finns who eventually settled on the coast another hundred years on. Namibia is about three and a half times the size of the UK, and yet its population is only 3 million. It is big and empty. Most of it is desert. I’ve got more endless expanse shots than I know what to do with. Here is just one of them. Plus a short vid shot from a hot air balloon which gives you an idea of the sheer endlessness of the place. Even in the capital city, Windhoek, there is just so much space. The only two places in the world…
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