Lesotho

Lesotho is a country with many mountains.

South Africa is on every side. People speak Sesotho and English. The capital city is Maseru.

Lesotho is in southern Africa, and it is completely surrounded by one other country, South Africa. A country inside another country like this is called an enclave. Lesotho has no coast, so it depends on South Africa to reach the rest of the world.

It is a kingdom with a king, and the people are called the Basotho. Sesotho and English are the official languages. The 2016 census counted about 2 million people, and the capital is Maseru, in the western lowlands.

Britannica describes Lesotho as a scenic land of tall mountains and narrow valleys that owes its long political autonomy to the mountains that surround and protect it. An enclave bordering South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and Eastern Cape provinces, it relies on South Africa for access to the outside world, for a customs union and for much employment.

The Bureau of Statistics' 2016 Population and Housing Census counted 2,007,201 people. Lesotho is a constitutional monarchy with a Senate that includes 22 principal chiefs and a 120-member National Assembly. Sotho (Sesotho), a Bantu language, is spoken by most people and is official with English; Zulu, Phuthi and Xhosa are spoken in some areas. The loti circulates alongside the South African rand.

Maseru is the capital city.

The photo looks over Maseru from a hill. Thaba Bosiu is a mountain where an old king lived.

Maseru, the capital, is by far the largest city, and many people have moved there since 1966. The photo shows Maseru from Parliament Hill. Other towns include Maputsoe, Teyateyaneng, Mafeteng and Hlotse.

Near Maseru is Thaba Bosiu, the mountain where King Moshoeshoe I built the center of his kingdom. Teyateyaneng is known for arts and crafts, and every year the Morija Arts and Cultural Festival shows off Lesotho's artists and performers.

Since independence people have moved steadily to Maseru, the largest city by far; smaller towns include Maputsoe, Teyateyaneng, Mafeteng and Hlotse, yet about three-fourths of the population is rural. Almost three-fourths of people live in a corridor about 40 km wide along the Caledon River in the western lowlands.

Britannica calls Thaba Bosiu ('Mountain at Night'), the center of Moshoeshoe I's kingdom where he is buried, the country's most important historic site. Teyateyaneng is the center of arts and crafts, the Morija Arts and Cultural Festival is held yearly south of Maseru, and artists borrow motifs from San rock art at Ha Baroana, a rock shelter east of the capital.

Lesotho has very tall mountains.

Snow falls on them in winter. Big rivers begin in the mountains. The Orange River flows all the way to the ocean.

Two-thirds of Lesotho is mountains. The Drakensberg range forms its eastern border, and its highest peak, Thabana Ntlenyana, rises 3,482 meters. High in the mountains is a plateau where two of South Africa's biggest rivers begin: the Orange, called the Senqu in Lesotho, and the Tugela.

Summers bring rain and hail. Winters, from May to September, are cold and dry, and the Maloti Mountains are usually covered with snow. In the mountains it can snow in any month of the year!

Two-thirds of Lesotho is mountainous. The Drakensberg forms the eastern boundary, rising to Thabana Ntlenyana (3,482 m); the Maloti spurs join it in the north to form a plateau of 2,700–3,200 m, the source of South Africa's two largest rivers, the westward Orange (Senqu) and the eastward Tugela, as well as tributaries of the Caledon (Mohokare). Extensive erosion has damaged soils.

Rain, about 710 mm a year on average, falls mostly from October to April and decreases from east to west; summer hail is common. Lowland temperatures range from 32 °C in summer to −7 °C in winter, and highland readings below −18 °C are not unusual. Winter precipitation in the Maloti is almost always snow, and Britannica notes it snows there in every month of the year.

Birds called bearded vultures live in the mountains.

A rare fish called the Maloti minnow lives in mountain streams. A park keeps the animals safe.

Lesotho's mountains are one of the last homes in southern Africa of the bearded vulture, also called the lammergeier. Cape vultures live here too.

Sehlabathebe National Park, high in the southeast, protects birds of prey, mountain reedbuck and leopards. Its streams hold the Maloti minnow, a small fish that is critically endangered. Many kinds of aloe plants grow in the cool, wet areas.

Britannica calls Lesotho the last stronghold in Southern Africa of the bearded vulture, or lammergeier, and notes that Sehlabathebe National Park, near Qacha's Nek, protects raptors, mountain reedbuck and leopards. Some rivers hold yellowfish and the rare Maloti minnow; trout and the North African catfish have been introduced. Numerous native aloes grow in the cooler, wetter areas.

Sehlabathebe (6,500 ha) forms part of the Maloti-Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site with South Africa's uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park. UNESCO lists the endangered Cape vulture (Gyps coprotheres) and bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) there, and describes the Maloti minnow (Pseudobarbus quathlambae) as a critically endangered fish found only in Sehlabathebe.

Many people live in small villages.

People wear colorful blankets like cloaks. Some wear pointed hats woven from grass. Football is a favorite sport.

Most Basotho live in villages in the western lowlands, where families and clans live close together. Because the weather can change so much, many men and women wear colorful blankets as cloaks, and some wear the Sotho hat, woven from reeds into a cone with a knot on top.

Corn, sorghum, wheat, beans and peas are the main crops, and herders take sheep and cattle up to mountain grasslands in summer. Football is the most popular sport, and herders play the lesiba, an instrument made from a string and a feather that the player blows on.

About three-fourths of Basotho are rural, in villages averaging 30 to 50 nuclear families bound by clan and family loyalties; traditional authority runs from the king through chiefs to the village. More than three-fifths of people are under 29. Some four-fifths profess Christianity, the largest denomination Roman Catholic.

Britannica describes multicolored blankets worn as cloaks against sharp climate changes and the conical reed Sotho hat with its topknot; crafts include pottery, grass weaving and painted house walls. Herders play the lesiba; the gumboot dance shows the influence of migrant mine labor, while mohobelo is a men's stomping dance with high kicks. Football is the most played sport, and horse racing matters in rural life. Wool and mohair are exported, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project sends water to South Africa and makes hydroelectric power.