Kaokoland
North- Western Namibia

Kaokoland is often described as one of the last true wilderness areas in Southern Africa.

The attractions of the area are the scenic beauty of the mountain landscapes, rugged access routes and the tranquillity.

Kaokoland covers some 48 982 square kilometres of largely unspoilt mountain wilderness and is the home of the Himba people – a proud, semi-nomadic tribe of pastoralists.

Kaokoland falls into a much greater area known as Kaokoveld, which includes Damaraland.

The Kaokoveld stretches from the Kunene River which forms the Namibian border with Angola in the north to the Ugab River north of Brandberg in the south. The western boundary is formed by the Skeleton Coast, while the eastern limit is defined by the Outjo, Otjiwarongo, Omaruru and Karibib magisterial districts.

Kaokoveld offers the visitor a magnificent diversity of terrain and ecosystems, all of which add to the fascination of the area. These various systems lie in almost parallel lines from the coast inland.

The desert dunes along the desolate Skeleton Coast form a starkly beautiful but narrow sand sea which seldom reaches further than 20 kilometres inland except in the far north, near the Hartmann Mountains and the Angolan border, where it extends some 60 kilometres inland.  The dunes are true desert where the rainfall rarely exceeds 15mm per annum and the vegetation is reduced to hardy lichens, scrub-like succulents and
quick-growing grasses which flourish in isolated localities especially after the brief and infrequent showers.

To the east and adjoining the dune belt, is the area known as the inner Namib or Pro-Namib which includes the Hartmann Valley and the spectacular Marienfluss. The rainfall in this area increases to approximately 30mm to 100mm per annum thus making it a semi-desert with a greater diversity of plant life including the well-known prehistoric plant, the Welwitschia.  The terrain in this Pro-Namib region consists essentially of flat, wide plains dotted with inselbergs or small round-topped koppies ringed by rugged and weathered chains of hills or high mountains.

Further inland a mountainous, broken escarpment which runs from Angola through the Kaokoveld and down as far as South Africa, rises from the plains and separates the low-lying Pro-Namib from the highlands to the east.

The mountains in the north at Van Zyl’s Pass rise from the floor of the Marienfluss and appear to be an unbroken line of solid rock reaching an altitude of some 1500 metres above sea level.

At the Khowarib Schlucht the landscape is carved by rivers which form deep valleys and chasms. At Sesfontein and Warmquelle which lie on the border between the Kaokoland and Damaraland, the mountains are set further apart and the valleys are so broad that they are better described as plains.

To the east of the escarpment lies a large, central inland drainage basin which serves as a transition between the highlands which extend beyond Etosha Pan, eastward into Botswana and finally into the area that used to be known as the Transvaal Highveld.

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