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South Africa occupies the southern tip of Africa, its coastline stretching more than from the desert border with Namibia on the Atlantic (western) coast southwards around the tip of Africa and then north to the border with Mozambique on the Indian Ocean. The low-lying coastal zone is narrow for much of that distance, soon giving way to a mountainous escarpment (Great Escarpment) that separates the coast from the high inland plateau. In some places, notably the province of KwaZulu-Natal in the east, a greater distance separates the coast from the escarpment. Although most of the country is classified as semi-arid, it has considerable variation in climate as well as topography. South African central plateau contains only two major rivers: * the Limpopo (a stretch of which is shared with Zimbabwe) * the Orange (with its tributary, the Vaal) which runs with a variable flow across the central landscape from east to west, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean at the Namibian border The eastern and southern coastal regions are drained by numerous shorter rivers. There are very few coastal rivers along the arid west coast north of 31°30′S. In such a dry country, dams and irrigation are extremely important: the largest dam is the Gariep on the Orange River. ==Topographical Divisions== Like much of the African continent south of the Sahara, South Africa’s landscape is dominated by a high Central Plateau surrounded by coastal lowlands. This plateau is rimmed by the Great Escarpment which extends northwards to about 10° south of the Equator (i.e. into Angola in the west, and Zambia in the east). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Geography of South Africa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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