Why Is a Quarter of South Africa So Empty?

More than a quarter of South Africa is the Karoo: a high, dry plateau bigger than Italy, where fewer than one South African in fifty lives. We stack the evidence one map layer at a time (rain, rock, water, history, and a law that protects the silence) to work out why it stayed so empty. Chapters 0:00 More than a quarter of South Africa 0:33 How empty is empty? 1:35 Reason 1: Rain 3:03 Reason 2: Land 4:28 Reason 3: Water underground 5:13 Reason 4: History 6:45 Reason 5: The law of silence 8:31 The exception: the Orange River 9:19 What could change it 10:13 The evidence, stacked How we counted "The Karoo" here means the three Karoo ecoregions in RESOLVE Ecoregions2017 (Nama Karoo, Succulent Karoo and Gariep Karoo) inside South Africa. Area (about 336,000 km²) and population (about 1.2 million in 2025) are our own calculation from that boundary and WorldPop's 2025 population model; the province figures are from Stats SA's Census 2022. Sources Stats SA: Stats in Brief 2022; Census 2022 Statistical Release P0301.4 Desmet & Cowling (1999), The climate of the karoo, in The Karoo: Ecological Patterns and Processes (Cambridge University Press) Dictionary of South African English: "karoo" DWAF, South Africa Yearbook 2003/04, ch. 23 (rainfall and runoff) Met Office historic station data, Heathrow Ordnance Survey: Ben Nevis 1,345 m van den Berg et al. (2018), literature review for Cape Wools SA (Grootfontein ADI / SAEON) Dean & Macdonald (1994), Journal of Arid Environments 26(3) Carnarvon Research Station stocking-density trial (African Journal of Range & Forage Science) Conradie (2024), South African Journal of Agricultural Extension 52(5) Census 2011 by place (Adrian Frith, from Stats SA data); Western Cape Provincial Treasury SEP-LG 2023, Central Karoo Everatt (2023), The Conversation: Census 2022 undercount Penn (2005), The Forgotten Frontier (Ohio University Press) Webley (1992), Southern African Field Archaeology 1; Voigt et al. (1995) University of Cape Town: the Bleek and Lloyd archive; Deacon (1986), African Studies Miescher (2023), De Aar (University of Pretoria ESI Press) Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act 21 of 2007; Government Gazette 37434 (2014); Notices 465 of 2012 and 1411 of 2017 Parliament of South Africa, reply to question NW1493 (Minister of Science and Technology) Guinness World Records: largest radio quiet zone SKA Observatory: MeerKAT inauguration; SKA-Mid OFM News (2016): Karoo farmers and the SKA land purchases SciDev.Net (2005): the Southern African Large Telescope Chalmers University of Technology thesis: Beaufort West direct reclamation South African Government: geography and climate (the Orange River) DWS: Kakamas Water User Association water management plan; NAMC Fruit Trade Flow 11 (2013) SAnews (2016): Solar De Aar Africa Check: Karoo shale gas; Daily Maverick (2026) Engelbrecht et al. (2015), Environmental Research Letters 10(8) Maps and data NASA Blue Marble Next Generation (public domain) · NOAA ETOPO 2022 (public domain) · WorldPop 2025, R2025A (CC BY 4.0) · CHIRPS v2.0 rainfall, UC Santa Barbara Climate Hazards Center (public domain) · RESOLVE Ecoregions2017, Dinerstein et al. 2017 (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (public domain) · Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2024–2025 · NASA/JPL SRTM PIA02706 · ISS astronaut photographs courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center Photos and art Ivan Kahl, Rushay Booysen, Zak H, Ryan Lansdown, Chris Munnik (Pexels) · South African Tourism, flowcomm, Gary Bembridge (CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons) · SKA Organisation / SARAO and SKAO / Max Alexander (CC BY 3.0) · Morné van Rooyen (Wikimedia Commons, attribution) · Samuel Daniell, 1804 (British Library, CC0) · William John Burchell, 1822 (public domain) · Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (CC0) Music and sound design: original, made for Atlas Evidence.