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eW/FS/WE/001
The water environment
Physiography: Geography
Geography is the study of the interaction off all human and physical
phenomena on the earth's surface and of how interactions among
places form patterns and organise space.
(http://www.unisa.ac.za)
South Africa is one of the most
geographically varied countries of the
African continent, comprising territory
that ranges from the rolling, fertile plains
of the highveld and the wide open
savanna of the Eastern Transvaal to the
Kalahari desert and the peaks of the
Drakensberg Mountains (right).
South Africa is located on the southern tip of Africa. It stretches from
22°S to 35°S and from 17°E to 33°E.
It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and the Indian Ocean
along the south and east. South Africa’s coastline is 2,798 km in total
length.
South Africa borders in the north, from west to east, with Namibia
(855km), Botswana (1 840km), and Zimbabwe (225km), and in the
northeast, with Mozambique (491km) and Swaziland (430km). Whollyenclosed by South Africa, is the independent kingdom of Lesotho with a
borderline of 909km. All the land’s boundaries measure 4 750km in
total.
Almost all of South Africa's 1 219 912 km2 lie below the Tropic of
Capricorn, and the country is geographically composed of three
primary regions:
An expansive central (interior) plateau. Most of the central plateau
(and most of the country) consists of high (1,220-1,830m), rolling
grassland known as the highveld.
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A nearly continuous escarpment of mountain ranges that ring the
plateau on the west, south, and east. The highest points of the
mountainous escarpment are found in the stunning Drakensberg
Mountains (dragon's back), where the tips of dragon's back exceeds
heights of 3,050m.
A narrow strip of low-lying land along the coast.
South Africa's extra-territorial holdings include: Robben Island, Dassen
Island, and Bird Island in the Atlantic Ocean, and Prince Edward Island
and Marion Island about 1 920 kilometres southeast of Cape Town in
the Indian Ocean.
South Africa is divided into 9 provinces:
Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern
Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and the Free State.
South Africa’s administrative capital is Pretoria (Gauteng) and its
legislative capital and largest city is Cape Town in the Western Cape.
The judicial capital is Bloemfontein in the Free State.
The southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas, located in the
Western Cape Province about 161 km southeast of the Cape of Good
Hope.
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