Culture | Economy | Gallery | Geography/Climate | Index | Military | Politics | Population

The name of the country is derived from the Namib Desert, considered to be the oldest desert in the world. Before its independence in 1990, the area was known first as German South-West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika), then as South-West Africa, reflecting the colonial occupation by the Germans and the British.

Pre-colonial period

The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by Bushmen, Damara, Namaqua, and since about the 14th century AD, by immigrating Bantu who came with the Bantu expansion. The first Europeans to disembark and explore the region were the Portuguese navigators Diogo Cão in 1485 and Bartolomeu Dias in 1486, still the region was not claimed by the Portuguese crown.

In the late 19th century Dorsland trekkers (also known as Junker Boers) crossed the area on their way from the Transvaal to Angola. However, like most of Sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia was not extensively explored by Europeans until the 19th century, when traders and settlers arrived, principally from Germany and Sweden.

German rule

Namibia became a German colony in 1884 to forestall British encroachment and was known as German South-West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika)—apart from Walvis Bay, which was under British control. From 1904 to 1907, the Herero and the Namaqua took up arms against the Germans and in the subsequent Herero and Namaqua genocide, 10,000 Nama (half the population) and approximately 65,000 Hereros (about 80% of the population) were killed. The survivors, when finally released from detention, were subject to a policy of dispossession, deportation, forced labor, and racial segregation and discrimination in a system that in many ways anticipated apartheid and even perhaps foreshadowed the industrial-scale killing in Nazi Germany. Indeed, some historians have speculated the German genocide in Namibia was a model used by Nazis in the Holocaust, but most scholars say that episode was not especially influential for Nazis, who were children at the time. The memory of genocide remains relevant to ethnic identity in independent Namibia and to relations with Germany.

South African rule and the struggle for independence

South Africa occupied the colony during World War I and administered it as a League of Nations mandate territory. Although the South African government wanted to incorporate 'South-West Africa' into its territory, it never officially did so, although it was administered as the de facto 'fifth province', with the white minority having representation in the whites-only Parliament of South Africa.

Following the League's supersession by the United Nations in 1946, South Africa refused to surrender its earlier mandate to be replaced by a United Nations Trusteeship agreement, requiring closer international monitoring of the territory's administration. During the 1960s, when European powers granted independence to their colonies and trust territories in Africa, pressure mounted on South Africa to do so in Namibia. In 1966 the International Court of Justice dismissed a complaint brought by Ethiopia and Liberia against South Africa's continued presence in the territory, but the U.N. General Assembly subsequently revoked South Africa's mandate.

Soon thereafter the South-West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) military wing, People's Liberation Army of Namibia, a guerrilla group began their armed struggle for independence, but it was not until 1988 that South Africa agreed to end its illegal occupation of Namibia, in accordance with a United Nations peace plan for the entire region. During the South African administration of Namibia, white people commercial farmers, representing 0.2% of the national population, owned 74% of arable land. Transition for independence started in 1989 and on 21 March 1990 the country officially claimed full independence. Sam Nujoma was sworn in as the first President of Namibia watched by Nelson Mandela (who had been released from prison shortly beforehand) and representatives from 147 countries, including 20 heads of state. Walvis Bay was ceded to Namibia in 1994 upon the end of Apartheid in South Africa.

After independence

Since independence, SWAPO has won every presidential and parliamentary election in Namibia. Nujoma was re-elected as president twice in 1994 and 1999 and then succeeded by Hifikepunye Pohamba in 2004. Pohamba was re-elected in 2009.