POPULATION 1,820,916
LUTHERAN 44 percent
AFRICAN INDIGENOUS BELIEFS 20 percent
ROMAN CATHOLIC 18 percent
DUTCH REFORMED 4 percent
ANGLICAN 4 percent
MUSLIM 3 percent
OTHER (AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL, METHODIST, PRESBYTERIAN, BAPTIST, MORMON, JEWISH, HINDU, BAHAI) 7 percent

Country Overview

Introduction

Namibia is a large, sparsely populated country on the Atlantic Ocean in southwestern Africa. It is surrounded by Angola, Botswana, and South Africa. The Damara-Nama word "Namib" (enclosure) describes the country's encompassment by deserts, the Namib in the west and the Kalahari in the east. Namibian ethnic groups include the Nama, Damara, Oshivambo, Kavango, Caprivian, Otjiherero, Tswana, San, Afrikaner, British, German, and Coloured (mixed-race).

With one of the world's biggest gemstone diamond deposits, large quantities of copper, zinc, uranium, and salt, vast tracts of land ideal for cattle farming, and fishladen coastal waters, Namibia attracted European settlers from the 1840s onward. In 1884 the Germans made it a colony known as South West Africa and began a...