The impressive Thaba-Bosiu cultural village

LESOTHO—THE KINGDOM IN THE SKY

BACKGROUND

The Kingdom of Lesotho is a democratic sovereign and independent country which has an unusual geographical feature of being entirely surrounded by another country, the Republic of South Africa and well linked to each other by air, rail and road. The capital Maseru, is only 600km (6 hours drive) away from South Africa’s busiest harbuor, Durban, 400km (4 hours drive) from Johannesburg city and one hour’s drive from Bloemfontein, a judicial and academic centre in South Africa.

The country has a land area of approximately 30 355 km, making it similar in size to Belgium or a little larger than the American state of Maryland in the USA and has a population of about 2 million. The name Lesotho translates into “the land of people who speak Sotho”.

The Kingdom of Lesotho is one of three remaining monarchies in Africa situated between 28 and 31 degrees south, and between 27 and 30 degrees east, which makes it lie entirely outside the tropics, and is thus a bilharzias and Malaria free destination.

Lesotho - a land of heights and extremes is nestled between the Drakensberg and Maloti mountains ranges and makes it the only country in the world with all its land lying at altitudes in excess of 1 500m. Hence it is often referred to as the “Switzerland of Africa”, the Kingdom in the Sky or the Roof of Africa. The mountain, Thabana-Ntlenyana is, at 3482m, the highest in Southern Africa, while the highest single drop fall in the Southern Africa Maletsunyane is 192m, having the highest abseiling cliff in the whole world at 204m.

The Kingdom is home to the largest and most ambitious civil engineering project in the whole of Africa, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), which has harnessed and commercialised her upstream surplus water resources - often referred to by Basotho as their “White Gold”