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[[image]]
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Gazankulu Homeland, South Africa

[[3 images]]

Latitude: 23.05°S     Longitude: 31.03°E
Date: October 4, 1997
Type of Image: EarthKAM
Image ID #: STS086.ESC.08101513

This image, of the northeast corner of South Africa (a) where it meets Mozambique (b) highlights distinctive land-use patterns. The central part of the scene is South Africa's Kruger National Park (c), a famous wildlife reserve scarred by recent burning (d). Different land-use practices on either side of the Kruger National Park outline the Park borders.

The Gazankulu Homeland (e), one of the several black African homelands, contains dozens of small white patches marking "rural ghettoes" (f), population centers where hundreds of thousands of black Africans were forced to set up their homes during the height of the apartheid regime of the past South African government. The patches are evidence of denudation of the natural vegetation due to overpopulation and overgrazing by herd animals. Shuttle imagery shows not a single patch in this area in 1983, indicating the scale and speed of the population removals which resulted in the ghettoes. 

The most prominent feature in Mozambique is the dry bed of the Limpopo River (g), a major river which, further north, acts as the border between the states of South Africa and Zimbabwe. 

Additional information:
EarthKAM images and lessons:  http://www.earthkam.ucsd.edu
JSC Earth From Space image database:  http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov
NASA Spacelink: http://spacelink.nasa.gov

LG-1999-05-505-HQ