Mapungubwe National Park
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- Duration: 5 Minutes
- Publisher: Tourvest Travel Services Learning & Development.
- Ensure to complete the course quiz.
Set right up against the northern border of South Africa, uniting Botswana and Zimbabwe, lies Mapungubwe National Park - an extensive savannah landscape situated at the meeting place of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers. This is the land of sandstone formations, mopane woodlands, brooding baobabs, ancient floodplains and unique riverine forests that form a dramatic backcloth for the wealth of animal life - elephant, giraffe, buffalo, white rhino, gemsbok and other antelope, extensive bir life, and the more elusive mammal like hyenas, leopards and lions.
Mapungubwe is South Africa’s first kingdom, a highly complex society that marked the heart of a pre-Shona kingdom between 1050 AD and 1270 AD, only to be abandoned in the 14th century. The Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape - the virtually untouched remains of the palace sites, the settlement area dependent upon them, and two capital sites that remain - was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003 and forms part of the Mapungubwe National Park.
The Cultural Landscape provides visitors with a unique portrait of the social and political structures of a society that traded with China and India, was regarded as the most complex society in southern Africa and was the first society since the Bushmen to settle in South Africa. The kingdom was regarded as the forerunner of the Zimbabwe civilisation and at its height, Mapungubwe, which means place of the stone of wisdom, was the largest kingdom in the African sub-continent. Some 5000 people appeared to live around Mapungubwe Hill where their ‘sacred’ leader lived in seclusion from his people.
Things To See:
- The Lost City
- Wildlife and Mystic Scenery
- The Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre
- The Confluence