Geography of South Africa ore from the interior. South Africa is largely a dry country, with most of its western regions being semi-desert. The rainfall increases in the east, (the Highveld, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Eastern Midlands), and falls primarily in summer. The narrow southern coastal strip receives all-year rainfall in the east (the Garden Route), and winter rainfall in the west (on the Cape Peninsula and its surrounds). The summers are warm to hot, while the winter temperatures can vary, depending on locality from bitterly cold to cool. Thus the Karoo, which occupies a large part of the western Central Plateau, has a climate
Karoo desert ephemerals, spaced 50 cm or more apart, and becoming very sparse going northwards into Bushmanland and, from there, into the Kalahari Desert. The driest region of the Karoo, however, is its southwestern corner, between the Great Escarpment and the Cederberg-Skurweberg mountain ranges, called the Tankwa Karoo, which receives only 75 mm of rain annually. The eastern and north-eastern Karoo are often covered by large patches of grassland. The typical Karoo vegetation used to support large game, sometimes in vast herds. Today, sheep thrive on the xerophytes, though each sheep requires about 4 ha of grazing to sustain itself. The