The Geography of South Africa Explained

On the southern tip of the African continent, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east, lies the country of South Africa. So remote yet so incredibly important to human history, it is thought to be the birthplace of the Homo sapiens and I believe that we as a species couldn't have picked a more picturesque and fascinating country to start our journey from. In this video we'll explore what makes the geography of South Africa so unique and diverse, and then dive into its three distinct regions ranging from the coastal plains over the Great Escarpment to the massive interior plateau. Chapter 1. Diversity of South Africa. One of the best ways to characterize a region's climate is through the use of the Köppen climate classification, which divides the world into regions as a function of their average temperatures, precipitation and seasonal patterns. In most cases, a single zone covers vast areas and multiple countries before slowly transitioning into the next zone, but not so in South Africa. Due to various influences of oceanic currents and an intense topographical relief, 13 distinct zones can be found across the country, making it one of the most climatically diverse countries in the world. In the west, where the Namib and Kalahari deserts cross over the South Africa, cold and hot arid deserts are spanning over the land, with the coastal areas being a mix of arid and temperate climates. The further east you move, the more intense the precipitation gets, and the desert turns to steppe until a large temperate area covers the country around Johannesburg and Pretoria. Looking over to the coast, the tallest mountain range of South Africa even offers skiing opportunities, before a coastal strip to the far east even turns into a tropical savannah. This climatic diversity spanning the whole country, together with its climatic isolation being bound by a thick layer of equatorial and desert climates to the north, also has created a very unique flora and fauna. Looking at the global distribution of plants, the botanist Ronald Goode identified six distinct natural separations of flowering plants, which he calls floristic kingdoms. These are fast-spanning units overlapping multiple continents and finding the highest common denominator among the global flora. Four of these, the Holochtes, Neotropes, Palaeotropes, and Australis, cover nearly the entire planet, but the flora that developed on the southern tip of the African continent was determined to be too distinct to be grouped into any of these kingdoms, making it its own, Kapensis, or Cape Floral Kingdom. This relatively small area is not just very different from the rest of the world, but also extremely diverse within itself, boasting thousands of different plants, many of which are endemic to South Africa. To put some numbers onto this, it is estimated that the Finbos, the roughly 200 kilometer wide coastal belt, is home to around 9,000 species of plants, of which around 6,000 can only be found here, which is on par with the Malaysian Tropical Rainforest, or the Amazon. This diversity also constitutes one-fifth of all plant species found across the African continent, and a single mountain, like the Table Mountain outside Cape Town, houses more different plant species than the entirety of the UK. These diverse ecosystems also led to the evolution of an extremely diverse fauna, where South Africa joins the ranks of the 17 so-called mega-diverse countries in the world, each of them boasting over 5,000 endemic species. Hundreds of unique mammals, reptiles, amphibian, and bird species across its 19 national and transfrontier parts, covering every aspect of the country's topography, are unique to South Africa. Even the waters in front of South Africa's shore boast an enormous biodiversity, bringing us to the first topographical area of the country, chapter 2, the coastal plains. While this video will mostly cover the geographical aspects of South Africa, I was also reading up on the current affairs of the country, and in today's media landscape, it is more important than ever to be aware of the political bias and credibility of the news you're reading. This is where today's sponsor, Ground News, comes to the aid. Ground News scours the web for articles covering thousands of topics and indicates the distribution of political biases from the publishers. While not publishing anything themselves, they provide an easy-to-use interface comparing the headlines with a clear and concise overview of who wrote the article and how reputable the source is. Let's take a look at this article about March being the 10th consecutive month to break temperature records. We can see the total number of sources and the bias ratings, which for this story is mostly coming from the left, so if you predominantly get your news from right-leaning outlets, you might miss this story. We can also see the factuality, ownership, and a map feature indicating which region of earth covers this story and when the articles were published. Try out Ground News by going to my link at ground.news.com or use my link in the description to get 40% off the unlimited access with their Vantage plan, which is what I use. But now back to the geography of South Africa, where we left off at the intersection of the oceans. At the southern tip of the African continent, South Africa is in a very unique situation, being influenced by two oceans and two major currents which couldn't be more different. On the east, the Agulhas current is pushing the warm Indian Ocean waters along the southeastern coast, bringing with it warm and humid air masses, creating an almost tropical environment. This is contrasted by the Banguela current, which rises from the depth of the southern Atlantic Ocean and carries vast amounts of cold and nutrient-rich waters, which fuel phytoplankton growth at South Africa's western shores. This foundation of the food chain creates an incredibly diverse marine ecosystem, with whales, sharks, dolphins, and African penguins feasting on the fish swarms. On land, the southwestern coastal plains are characterized by the Cape Fold Belt, a series of parallel running mountain ranges, stretching from the Cederberg municipality to the city of Kwebera, formerly known as Port Elizabeth. The erosion-resistant rock that tops these mountains has created the famous Table Mountain, which overlooks Cape Town. The steep cliffs of Table Mountain, though at a little bit larger scale, continue along the southern African coastline until Mozambique, where the relatively thin coastal plain rises continuously towards the inner continental shelf. In a geological time frame, southern Africa is exposed to a gradual but continuous tectonic uplift, which has created this smooth but sloped coastline. These ascents have the consequence that nearly all rivers that drain through the South African coastal plains are fast-flowing streams that directly plunge into the ocean. The combination of these two features means that there are virtually no natural harbors along the coastline, and the rivers are not navigable to any economically feasible extent. These rivers all originate on the southern slopes of the mountain range, which follows the interior radius of the coastline, bringing us to chapter 3, the Great Escarpment. Along the full length of the South African tip, from Angola and Namibia through South Africa and into Mozambique and Zimbabwe, the coastal plains rapidly transition into a steep and rocky escarpment, which draws a line between South Africa's two major topographical features. 500 million years ago, when a shallow sea at Gondwana's southern tip was being filled with sedimentary deposits, the foundation for today's Great Escarpment was built. The breakup of Gondwana, which resulted in the South American, African, and Antarctic continental shelf, included strong volcanic activity, which covered the area with a deep volcanic basalt slab, and continuous uplift in the past 200 million years has then created this multi-layered topographical escarpment which towers over the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Rivers and glaciers have done their work on these layers over the past many million years, and the softer sedimentary layers at the bottom are the first ones to carve in when enough stress has been exerted, leading to these iconic cliffs and canyons. The highest region of the Great Escarpment are the Drakensberg Mountains in the southeastern part of the country. The elevated sandstone and volcanic basalt layers reach an elevation of over 3,400 meters or 11,000 feet, resulting in a high alpine climate similar to the Alps in Europe. The high altitude even brings seasonal snowfall, having allowed small ski resorts to operate on the highest peaks of South Africa and Lesotho. Descending from these summits up to 600 meter deep almost vertical basaltic buttresses make the Drakensberg Escarpment an incredible nature spectacle to explore. Acknowledged for these qualities, a large area of the Drakensberg Escarpment has been put under protection by UNESCO in the year 2000 through the transnational Malotti Drakensberg Park. This region has been a home to humanity since the beginning of cultures on the planet, with the Sun People, a term used for the first semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers people of Southern Africa, having left their markings and stories in 3,500 cave paintings throughout the mountains. Just behind the towering escarpment, the elevated land opens up to form the Great African Plateau, which curves through the inner continent, bringing us to chapter 4, the interior plateau of South Africa. The whole region behind the Great Escarpment is quite elevated, with minimum elevations barely dipping below 1,000 meters or 3,300 feet, but the unique South African climate once again creates several very distinct sub-regions that constitute this plateau. From the north to the south, there are the Loeb, Busch and Heifeld, which with decreasing elevation and increasing aridity, gently transition into the Greco-Land West and the Great Karoo. In the very northeast, the subtropical savannah around the Limpopo River is home to the oldest and largest national park in South Africa, the Kruger National Park. Since the year 2000, there have been plans to connect the Kruger National Park with four other national parks behind the border with Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to create the third largest national park on Earth, stretching almost 100,000 square kilometers, or five times larger than the current Kruger National Park, across the savannah. While many fences around the established parks have been taken down in recent years, allowing the animals to resume their historical migration routes, the agreement hasn't been fully ratified in the constituting nations yet. South of the Loefeld, the elevation of around 500 meters drastically picks up as you move to Heifeld, which lays an average of 1,500 meters above the sea level. In the Heifeld, South Africa's densest urban center can be found, with Johannesburg and Pretoria pulling in a combined 16 million people into the Gauteng province. While Johannesburg is by far the largest city, Pretoria is one of the three South African capital cities, which split the three governmental branches of Executive, Legislative and Judicative between them. From the southern tip of the Heifeld, a few hundred meters behind the border with Lesotho, South Africa's longest river arises, which makes its 2,400 kilometer or 1,500 mile long journey through the inner plateau of South Africa, draining nearly the entirety of the plateau. The Orange River and its tributaries are the main collection of water for South Africa, supporting the vast majority of the country's agriculture in the Heifeld. Several dams have been built along its course, creating massive reservoirs, which manage the country's water, which has become more and more sparse as you travel westward. In the most western part of the interior plateau, called the Karoo, the driest places receive only around 75 millimeters of annual rainfall due to the Cape Folk mountains creating a rain shield. Nevertheless, there are settlements which thrive on sheep husbandry, which is made possible through abundant groundwater in the region. Throughout modern recorded history, this region has been transformed massively through human impact. The grassland was once the migratory path of uncountable large springbok herds, but the introduction of fast bred sheep herding has dwindled the numbers of free-roaming animals, which subsequently had large carnivores disappear as well. As a whole, South Africa is a fascinating country with so many geographical stories to tell. From its extremely diverse climate, over the fascinating mountain ranges and buttes, to its plants and dramatic megafauna, there is something new to learn everywhere. If you enjoyed the video, be sure to subscribe to not miss any future uploads. And thanks again to Ground News for sponsoring this video. Check them out with the link in the description or the pinned comment for a 40% discount on the annual vantage plan. See you in the next video. Cheers.