Namibia

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Wednesday, 19 September 2007, 08:07 CDT Download full size image

Featured today in this MODIS Aqua image is the country of Namibia. Namibia is in southern Africa, on the Atlantic coast. It's bordered by Angola, and Zambia to the north, Zimbabwe to the north-east, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the south.

Namibia has several notable deserts, most particularly the Namib Desert, which stretches over some 1000 miles of coastline, and is 100 miles across at its widest point. There are several national parks along the Namib desert, the largest of which is in the south, called Namib-Naukluft Park. This section of the Namib Desert contains the Sossusvlei Sand Dunes, the largest sand dunes in the world. (In particular, Dune 7, at approximately 383 meters is the highest sand dune in the world.) By comparison, Arabian sand dunes are over 100 meters lower than this.

In the top center of the image, is Etosha National Park - the pale-colored oval is actually the Etosha salt pan, which in the summer can fill with water. Etosha National Park, in Namibia, was first established in 1907, when Namibia was still a German colony called South West Africa. Though the park is smaller now, than it was in those days, it is still a large and significant wildlife preserve.

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