Ovamboland
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Ovamboland was the name given by English-speaking visitors to the land occupied by the Ovambo people in what is now northern Namibia and southern Angola. After the Scramble for Africa in which Africa was partitioned between European powers, the boundary between Portuguese West Africa (Angola) and German South West Africa ran through the middle of Ovamboland, which the Ovambo people called Owambo, and the name Ovamboland was then used for the part that lay south of the border, though the German colonial rulers did not really establish their authority there.
During the First World War South African troops conquered the German colony of South West Africa in 1915, and took control of Ovamboland in 1917, though it still lay outside the "police zone".
Following the Odendaal Commission in the 1950s the South African government decided to apply the apartheid policy in South West Africa, which South Africa continued to rule in terms of a League of Nations mandate, and continued to do so after the mandate was revoked in 1968.
Ovamboland then became a bantustan called Owambo, intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing "homeland" for the Ovambo people. It was set up in 1968 and self-government was granted in 1973.
Owambo was the setting for a protracted counter-insurgency war that formed part of the South_African_Border_War.
Owambo, like other homelands in South West Africa, was abolished in May 1989 at the start of the transition to independence.
For English-speaking people, the iconic images of the region are the makalani palm, oshana and cuca shop.
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| Apartheid-era Bantustans in South-West Africa |  |
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| Bushmanland | Damaraland | East Caprivi/Lozi | Hereroland | Kaokoland | Kavangoland | Namaland | Ovamboland | Rehoboth | Tswanaland Bantustans that were given "self-government" are in italics. |
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