49 Facts About Namibia

Namibia is a member state of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Commonwealth of Nations.

Driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia has been inhabited since pre-historic times by the San, Damara and Nama people.

Today Namibia is one of the least densely populated countries in the world.

Dry lands of Namibia have been inhabited since prehistoric times by the San, Damara, and Nama.

Namibia became a German colony in 1884 under Otto von Bismarck to forestall perceived British encroachment and was known as German South West Africa.

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Some historians have speculated that the German genocide in Namibia was a model for the Nazis in the Holocaust.

Namibia became one of several flashpoints for Cold War proxy conflicts in southern Africa during the latter years of the PLAN insurgency.

Since independence Namibia has completed the transition from white minority apartheid rule to parliamentary democracy.

Namibia has rich coastal and marine resources that remain largely unexplored.

Namibia extends from 17°S to 25°S latitude: climatically the range of the sub-Tropical High Pressure Belt.

In May 2019, Namibia declared a state of emergency in response to the drought, and extended it by additional 6 months in October 2019.

Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa and depends largely on groundwater.

Namibia is one of few countries in the world to specifically address conservation and protection of natural resources in its constitution.

In 1993, Namibia's newly formed government received funding from the United States Agency for International Development through its Living in a Finite Environment (LIFE) Project.

The President of Namibia is elected to a five-year term and is both the head of state and the head of government.

Namibia has a largely independent foreign policy, with persisting affiliations with states that aided the independence struggle, including Cuba.

In early 2020, The Global Firepower Index reported that Namibia's military is ranked as one of the weakest in the world, at 126th out of 137 countries.

In 2017, Namibia signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Namibia is divided into 14 regions which are subdivided into 121 constituencies.

The administrative division of Namibia is tabled by Delimitation Commissions and accepted or declined by the National Assembly.

Local authorities in Namibia can be in the form of municipalities, town councils or villages.

Namibia is considered one of the most free and democratic countries in Africa, with a government that maintains and protects basic human rights and freedoms.

Namibia's economy is tied closely to South Africa's due to their shared history.

Namibia has a highly developed banking sector with modern infrastructures, such as online banking and cellphone banking.

The Bank of Namibia is the central bank of Namibia responsible for performing all other functions ordinarily performed by a central bank.

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Namibia's economy is characterised by a divide between the formal and the informal economies, which is in part aggravated by the legacy of Apartheid town planning.

Only four African countries made the Top 20 Emerging Markets list in the March 2013 issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine, and Namibia was rated ahead of Morocco, South Africa (15th), and Zambia (14th).

Namibia is classified as an Upper Middle Income country by the World Bank, and ranks 87th out of 185 economies in terms of ease of doing business.

Cost of living in Namibia is relatively high because most goods, including cereals, need to be imported.

Taxation in Namibia includes personal income tax, which is applicable to the total taxable income of an individual.

Namibia has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world, due in part to the fact that there is an urban economy and a more rural cashless economy.

Namibia is the fourth largest exporter of non-fuel minerals in Africa and was the world's fourth largest producer of uranium.

However as of 2019 Namibia continued to produce 750 tons Uranium annually making it a smaller than average exporter in the competitive world market.

Namibia is the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa to provide water through municipal departments.

The only bulk water supplier in Namibia is NamWater, which sells it to the respective municipalities which in turn deliver it through their reticulation networks.

UN evaluated in 2011 that Namibia has improved its water access network significantly since independence in 1990.

Many of Namibia's inhabitants have to resort to "flying toilets", plastic bags to defecate into, which after use are flung into the bush.

Namibia has the second-lowest population density of any sovereign country, after Mongolia.

Namibia has 13 cities, governed by municipalities and 26 towns, governed by town councils.

Islam in Namibia is subscribed to by about 9, 000 people, many of them Nama.

Namibia is home to a small Jewish community of about 100 people.

Namibia launched a National Health Extension Programme in 2012 deployment 1, 800 of a total ceiling of 4, 800 health extension workers trained for six months in community health activities including first aid, health promotion for disease prevention, nutritional assessment and counseling, water sanitation and hygiene practices, HIV testing and community-based antiretroviral treatment.

Namibia were participants in the 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups.

In December 2017, Namibia Cricket reached the final of the Cricket South Africa Provincial One Day Challenge for the first time.

In February 2018 Namibia hosted the ICC World Cricket League Division 2 with Namibia, Kenya, UAE, Nepal, Canada and Oman to compete for the final two ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier positions in Zimbabwe.

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Namibia won four Olympic silver medals and has medals from several World Athletics Championships.

Namibia achieved a career-high world ranking of 78th in 1998.

Namibia has free education for both primary and secondary education levels.

Namibia was ranked 100th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021.