Namibia derives its name from the Namib desert (loosely translated, the word means ‘vast place’), which has claims to be the oldest desert in the world, stretching back more than 55 million years. Much of the desert comprises gravel plain and rocky outcrops but in the southwest corner vast rolling dunes ripple towards the Atlantic Ocean – a spectacular and colourful Sand Sea that draws tourists to what is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, though a unique attribute of this desert is that it is often wreathed in thick fog.
Among the earliest inhabitants of the country were the hunter-gatherer San, who remain an identifiable ethnic minority now, though other groups such as the pastoralist Nama and Herero migrated there later. The country was colonized by Germany from 1884, which perpetrated one of the first genocides of the 20th century when it responded to a rebellion by wiping out the majority of the Nama and Herero populations.
