Veld ( or , Afrikaans and Dutch language: veld, field), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide-open, rural landscape in Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrubland, especially in the countries of South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. A certain woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa has been officially defined as the Bushveld by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Etymology
The word
veld () comes from the Afrikaans word for "field".
The etymological origin is older modern Dutch language veldt, a spelling that the Dutch abandoned in favour of veld during the 19th century,[Winkel, Lammert Allard te. De grondbeginselen der Nederlandsche spelling: Regelen der spelling voor het Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. Publisher: D. Noothoven van Goor, 1873. Download from: [1]] decades before the first Afrikaans dictionary.[Eric Anderson Walker (ed). The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Volume 4. Cambridge University Press 1963 (Afrikaans: pp. 890–894)][Berger, Iris. South Africa in World History. Oxford University Press, 2009. ] A cognate to the English "field", it was spelt velt[ Lemma = "velt", Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, Dutch Language Union] in Middle Dutch and felt[ Lemma = "felt", Oudnederlands Woordenboek, Dutch Language Union] in Old Dutch.
Climate
The climate of the veld is highly variable, but its general pattern is mild winters from May to September and hot or very hot summers from November to March, with moderate or considerable variations in daily temperatures and abundant sunshine. Precipitation mostly occurs in the summers in the form of high-energy
.
Over most of the South African Highveld, the average annual rainfall is between a year, decreasing to about near the western border and increasing to nearly in some parts of the Lesotho Highlands; the South African lowveld generally receives more precipitation than the highveld. Temperature is closely related to elevation. In general, the mean July (winter) temperatures range between in the Lesotho highlands and in the lowveld. January (summer) temperatures range between .
In Zimbabwe, precipitation averages around on the highveld, dropping to less than in the lowest areas of the Lowveld. Temperatures are slightly higher than in South Africa.
Over the entire veld, seasonal and annual average rainfall variations of up to 40% are common. Damaging drought affects at least half the area about once every three or four years; it reduces plant and animal biomass to sustainable levels again. Everywhere, the average number of hours of annual sunshine varies from 60 to 80% of the total amount possible.
Definitions
Highveld and lowveld
showing the Great Escarpment and its relation to the highveld, lowveld and
Lesotho highlands
]]
- The portion of the Great Escarpment that is colored red is the Drakensberg.
Highveld
Much of the interior of Southern Africa consists of a high plateau, the higher portions of which are known as the highveld, starting at the
Drakensberg escarpment, to the east of Johannesburg and sloping gradually downwards to the west and southwest, as well as to the north, through the bushveld towards the
Limpopo River.
[ Atlas of Southern Africa. (1984). p. 13. Reader's Digest Association, Cape Town]
These higher, cooler areas (generally more than above sea level) are characterised by flat or gently undulating terrain, vast
, and a modified tropical or subtropical climate. To the east, the highveld's border is marked by the Great Escarpment, or the
Mpumalanga Drakensberg. Still, the boundary is often arbitrary and not apparent in the other directions. The
blesbok and
quagga were among the large animals that once roamed on the highveld in great numbers. Nowadays, a sizeable population of
springbok still occurs in some areas.
[Richard Despard Estes, The Behavior Guide to African Mammals, University of California Press, ] Much of the area, though, is devoted to commercial farming and South Africa's largest conurbation (
Gauteng).
Lowveld
The lowlands, below about altitude, along South Africa's northern border with
Botswana and
Zimbabwe, where a 180-million-year-old failed
rift valley cuts into Southern Africa's central plateau and locally obliterates the Great Escarpment,
[McCarthy T. & Rubidge B. (2005) The Story of Earth & Life. p. 246-247. Struik Publishers, Cape Town.][McCarthy, T.S. (2013) The Okavango delta and its place in the geomorphological evolution of southern Africa. South African Journal of Geology 116: 1-54.] is known as the lowveld.
[ Atlas of Southern Africa. (1984). pp. 13, 192, 195. Reader's Digest Association, Cape Town] The
Limpopo river and Save Rivers run from the central African highlands via the lowveld into the
Indian Ocean to the east. The Limpopo lowveld extends southwards, east of the Drakensberg Escarpment through
Mpumalanga and ultimately into eastern
Eswatini. This southern limb of the lowveld is bounded by South Africa's border with
Mozambique to the east and the northeastern part of Drakensberg to the west.
[ Atlas of Southern Africa (1984). pp. 13, 182, 192. Reader's Digest Association, Cape Town] This region is generally hotter and less intensely cultivated than the highveld. Until the mid-20th century, the lowveld was still infested by the
tsetse fly, which transmits the sleeping sickness called
nagana among the
Zulus.
Thornveld
Thornveld (also thorn veld or thornveldt), often referred to as "acacia thornveld", is a type of semiarid savanna in which grassland with thorny
Acacia and certain species of thorny bushes predominate. The predominant plant species are usually different in the thornveld of the plains or in the hill thornveld, where, for example, species of genus
Balanites are common.
Some of the characteristic species
in the thornveld include:
Sandveld and hardveld
Sandveld
Sandveld, in the general sense of the word, is a type of veld characterised by dry, sandy soil, typical of certain areas of the Southern African region. It usually absorbs all water from the seasonal rains, although aquatic habitats, largely seasonal, may be also found in specific places in the sandveld.
Only certain hardy plant species thrive in the sandveld environment. These consist especially of grasses forming clumps and certain kinds of trees and shrubs.
The sandveld vegetation has a particular pattern of growth, rarely covering the whole terrain, thus leaving patches of sandy soil exposed on the surface. Some of the typical sandveld species are
Acacia haematoxylon,
A. luederitzii,
Boscia albitrunca,
Terminalia sericea,
Lonchocarpus nelsii,
Bauhinia petersiana, and
Baphia massaiensis.
Hardveld
Hardveld is a term applied to certain rocky soil areas in Botswana, mostly in the eastern part of the country. The landscape is an undulating plain with scattered rocky hill ranges. Areas of hardveld also occur in South Africa in the mountainous central
Kamiesberge of the
Northern Cape with hilly escarpments and deep river valleys. The soil of the hardveld is characterised by rocky outcrops and an abundance of stones and pebbles of different shapes and sizes.
The flora of the hardveld is typical of rocky savanna, with denser vegetation, so fewer denuded patches than in the sandveld, as well as taller trees.
See also
External links
