Southern Africa is an immense land mass, some 6.8 million square kilometres bordered by the Indian Ocean in the East and the Atlantic Ocean in the West.
Countries commonly included in Southern Africa include Angola, Botswana, The Comoros, Eswatini (Swaziland), Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In cultural geography, the island country of Madagascar is often not included due to its distinct language and cultural heritage.
In physical geography, the geographical delineation for the sub-region is the portion of Africa south of the Cunene and Zambezi Rivers: Botswana, Eswatini (Swaziland), Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the part of Mozambique that lies south of the Zambezi River. 
That definition is most often used in South Africa for natural sciences and particularly in guidebooks such as Roberts’ Birds of Southern Africa, the Southern African Bird Atlas Project, and Mammals of the Southern African Sub-Region.
It is not used in political, economic, or human geography contexts because the definition cuts Mozambique in two. The terrain of Southern Africa is varied ranging from forests, grasslands and then deserts.
The region has both low-lying coastal areas to mountains. In terms of natural resources, the region has the world’s largest resources of platinum and the platinum group elements, chromium, vanadium, and cobalt, as well as uranium, gold, copper, titanium, iron, manganese, silver, beryllium and then diamonds. 
Southern Africa is set apart from other Sub-Saharan African regions because of its mineral resources, including copper, diamonds, gold, zinc, chromium, platinum, manganese, iron ore, and coal.
Countries in Southern Africa are larger in geographic area, except three smaller landlocked states: Lesotho, Swaziland, and Malawi. The larger states- South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, and Angola—all have extensive mineral deposits. 
These widespread mineral resources make this one of the wealthiest regions of Africa with the greatest potential for economic growth. A chain of mineral resources in Southern Africa stretches from the rich oil fields in northwest Angola, east through the central diamond-mining region in Huambo Province, and into the Copper Belt region of Zambia and Congo. 
A region of rich mineral deposits continues to the south called the Great Dyke in central Zimbabwe, through the Bushveld basin into South Africa. This extends southwest through the Witwatersrand and Northern Cape of South Africa toward the southern coast. Mining activity exists across the eastern region. Diamond mining is found in parts of Botswana and along the Namibian coast. Coal can also be found in central Mozambique, Zimbabwe and northeast South Africa.
The climate of the region is broadly divided into subtropical and temperate regions in the north and south respectively, but also includes humid Sub-Tropical, a Mediterranean climate, highland subtropical, oceanic, desert and semi-arid regions. 
Except for lower regions of Zambia and interior regions of Namibia and Botswana, the region rarely suffers from extreme heat. In addition to that, the winter presents mostly mild and dry, except in the southwest. Cool southeasterly winds and high humidity bring cool conditions in the winter. The Namib Desert is the driest area in the region.
Altitude plays an outsize role in moderating the temperatures of the South African Highveld, Lesotho and much of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The prairie region of central and northeast South Africa, Zimbabwe and parts of Zambia is known are known as the veldt, divided into the Bushveld and Highveld regions. There are high temperatures and low rainfall inside the Zambezi and Limpopo river valleys, probably due to the lower altitude.
The Western Cape has a Mediterranean vegetation and climate, including the unique fynbos, grading eastward into an oceanic climate along the Garden Route to Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) and East London. The Namib and Kalahari deserts form are arid lands in the center-west separating the highlands, woodlands, croplands and pastures of wetter and higher East from the Atlantic Ocean. 
In addition, the Drakensberg and Eastern Highlands separate the highland areas and coastal plains centered on Mozambique in the north and KwaZulu-Natal to the south, the latter of which are often prone to flooding every few years.
Der Nama-Führer Hendrik Witbooi, um 1900. Nach dem Tod von Witbooi in Oktober 1905 führten Jacob Marengo, Cornelius Frederiks und Abraham Morris den Guerillakampf der Nama gegen die deutsche Schutztruppe fort. Samuel Maharero (1856-1923), son of Maharero (1820-1890)
Namibia is primarily a large desert and semi-desert plateau. Quivertree Forest, Bushveld. In the east the river systems of the Zambezi and Limpopo basin form natural barriers and sea-lanes between Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Limpopo is the northernmost province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province’s western and northern borders. The capital and largest city in the province is Polokwane, while the provincial legislature is situated in Lebowakgomo.
The province is made up of three former homelands of Lebowa, Gazankulu and Venda. Limpopo is made up of three main ethnic groups: the Pedi, the Tsonga and the Venda.
Across most of southern Africa, apart from the Western Cape in South Africa, the major rainfall season is during the southern hemisphere summer (December to February). In the Western Cape the rainfall maximum is in June through to August.
There are a number of important rainfall producing weather systems in southern Africa. These include, tropical-extra tropical cloud bands, tropical lows and tropical cyclones, cut-off lows and mesoscale convective systems. Winter midlatitude storms account for the June-August rainfall maximum in the Western Cape.
Year to year variability in rainfall, including droughts, are associated with changes in global and regional sea surface temperatures. These include the El Nino Southern Oscillation, the Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole and changes in the Benguela Current region in the southeast Atlantic. Future climate projections suggest that much of southern Africa will get hotter and drier in response to global climate change.