Karoo historical Karoo described in South African atlases and guide books (compare the map on the right with the map at the beginning of the article). The Succulent Karoo biome runs along the West Coast, from approximately Lamberts Bay northwards to over 200 km into southern Namibia. It starts in the south just north of the Sandveld geographical region, about 250 km north of Cape Town, and continues through Namaqualand, the Richtersveld, immediately south of the Orange River, and on into the Namaqualand or Namaland region of southern Namibia. None of these regions is ever referred to, either geographically or locally,
Karoo the winter. Grasses are uncommon, making most of the biome unsuitable for grazing. The low rainfall, in fact, discourages most forms of agriculture. An exception is the thriving ostrich-farming industry in the Little Karoo, which is heavily dependent on supplementary feeding with lucerne. The difference between the Succulent Karoo biome and the Nama Karoo biome is that the former receives the little rain that falls as cyclonic rainfall in winter, which has less erosive power than the infrequent but violent summer thunderstorms of the Nama Karoo. Frost is also less common in the Succulent Karoo biome than in the Nama