A 2009 genetic study on this subspecies suggests that the northern Namib Desert and Etosha National Park populations form a separate subspecies.

As semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains, the Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert, such as the Namib Desert to the west.

The Namibian landscape consists generally of five geographical areas, each with characteristic abiotic conditions and vegetation with some variation within and overlap between them: the Central Plateau, the Namib Desert, the Great Escarpment, the Bushveld, and the Kalahari Desert.

The Central Plateau runs from north to south, bordered by the Skeleton Coast to the northwest, the Namib Desert and its coastal plains to the southwest, the Orange River to the south, and the Kalahari Desert to the east.

In many areas within the Namib Desert, there is little vegetation with the exception of lichens found in the gravel plains, and in dry river beds where plants can access subterranean water.

Although the area is rocky with poorly developed soils, it is nonetheless significantly more productive than the Namib Desert.

The Namib Desert and the Namib-Naukluft National Park is located here.

File: SAC Namibia-desert-1. jpg | Namib Desert.

Mostly high plateau ; Namib Desert along coast ; Kalahari Desert in east.

They inhabit most of Namibia-the grasslands of the south, the Kalahari desert to the east, and the dry riverbeds of the northern bushveld of the Windhoek region, as well as the harsh Namib Desert on the west coast.

Large-scale, natural irrigation without rainfall, such as in the Atacama Desert and Namib desert, however, is mostly attributed to fog water.

The inhospitable Namib Desert constituted a formidable barrier and neither of the Portuguese explorers went far inland.

The genocide was characterized by widespread death by starvation and from consumption of well water which had been poisoned by the Germans in the Namib Desert.

Farther south, the Southern Namib Desert stretches south from Namibia along the Atlantic coastline.

In this section, the Namib Desert terminates on the north bank of the river, so under normal circumstances the volume of water added by these tributaries is negligible.

The Welwitschia plant is considered a living fossil, and is found only in the Namib Desert

The Namib Desert is one of the 500 distinct physiographic provinces of the South African Platform physiographic division.

Examples of singing sand dunes include California's Kelso Dunes and Eureka Dunes ; sugar sand beaches and Warren Dunes in southwestern Michigan ; Sand Mountain in Nevada ; the Booming Dunes in the Namib Desert, Africa ; Porth Oer ( also known as Whistling Sands ) near Aberdaron in Wales ; Indiana Dunes in Indiana ; Barking Sands in Hawaiʻi ; Mingsha Shan in Dunhuang, China ; Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts ; near the Al Udeid Air Base west of Doha, in Qatar ; and Gebel Naqous, near el-Tor, South Sinai, Egypt.

* Namib Desert

Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa.

The Kalahari is formed in a region of subsidence in the Hadley cell known as the " horse latitudes " and also its continentality, but the cause of the Namib desert is the cold Benguela current in the Atlantic ocean.

Welwitschia mirabilis is endemic to the Namib desert within Namibia and Angola.

The Namib is a coastal desert in southern Africa.

The name Namib is of Nama origin and means " vast place ".

Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 80 – 55 million years, the Namib is also the oldest desert in the world.

The Namib is almost completely uninhabited by humans except for several small settlements and indigenous pastoral groups, including the Ovahimba and Obatjimba Herero in the north, and the Topnaar Nama in the central region.

Although the outer Namib is largely barren of vegetation, lichens and succulents are found in coastal areas, while grasses, shrubs, and ephemeral plants thrive near the escarpment.

The " Long Wall " is a prominent coastal area of the Namib that runs along the Sperrgebiet in southwestern Namibia

The Namib desert is an important location for the mining of tungsten, salt and diamonds.

It causes sailors to lose their way ; this is testified by the remnants of a number of shipwrecks that can be found along the Skeleton Coast, in northern Namib.

An exception is Meroles anchietae, one of the few wall lizards that regularly eats seeds – an appropriate food for a lizard of the harsh Namib Desert.

Rhoptropus is a genus of geckos endemic to Southern Africa, better known as Namib Day Geckos.

The desert plated lizard ( Angolosaurus skoogi ) is a reptile species endemic to the northern Namib Desert in Namibia and Angola.

The South Atlantic High is similarly associated with the Namib Desert and the Mediterranean climate of the western part of South Africa.

Many Hoodia species are protected plants, typical of the Namib Desert, ranging from Central Namibia to southern Angola, especially in plains and rocky areas.

Southern Namib ( between Lüderitz and the Kuiseb River ) comprises a vast dune sea with some of the tallest and most spectacular dunes of the world, ranging in color from pink to vivid orange.

This previously bustling diamond town is now abandoned, and fights a constant struggle against being buried under the shifting sand dunes of the Namib desert.

Image: NEO namib-naukluft big. jpeg | High dunes in the Namib desert

Most of the sand-skiing is performed in the Namib desert dunes around Swakopmund and Walvis Bay.

According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba River in Angola, through Namibia and to the Olifants River in Western Cape, South Africa.

Areas within the Namib include the Skeleton Coast and the Kaokoveld in the north and the extensive Namib Sand Sea along the central coast.

Morning fogs coming from the ocean and pushing inwards into the desert are a regular phenomenon along the coast, and much of the life cycle of animals and plants in the Namib relies on these fogs as the main source of water.