You have full access to this open access chapter. Angola is a large country of 1,, km 2 on the southwest coast of Africa. These range from the ultra-desert of the Namib, through arid savannas of the coastal plains to a biologically diverse transition up the steep western Angolan Escarpment. Congolian rainforests are found in Cabinda and along the northern border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, with outliers penetrating southwards along the Angolan Escarpment, or up the tributaries of the Congo Basin.
Above the escarpment, high mountains rise to m above sea level, with isolated remnants of Afromontane forests and grasslands. Rainfall varies from lower than 20 mm per year in the southwest to over mm in the northwest and northeast. You have full access to this open access chapter, Download chapter PDF. This chapter presents a general outline of the physical geography and biodiversity characteristics of Angola, as background to the chapters that follow.
Colonial records of climatic variables Silveira are used in the absence of recent time series. This outline also draws on the recent regional geographies of Angola by Mendelsohn and co-workers Mendelsohn et al. The chapter is also strengthened by material detailed in the specialist papers that form the core of this volume. It is bounded to the west by an arid km coastline along the Atlantic Ocean; to the north by the moist forest and savanna ecosystems of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo DRC ; to the east by the moist savanna and woodland ecosystems of the DRC and Zambia; and by arid woodlands, savannas and desert along its km southern border with Namibia.
The general topography of Angola is illustrated in Fig. Seven percent of the country lies above m, reaching its highest point at m on Mount Moco. Topography of Angola, indicating provincial boundaries and capitals. The coastal lowlands, western escarpments, central highlands and plateaus, and the major drainage basins of the Cuanza, Congo and Zambezi rivers are clearly revealed.
Geological profile from Luanda to Quisonde, scanned from the original manuscript produced by Friedrich Welwitsch during his expeditions between and He recognised five major erosional planation surfaces in western Angola at a time when geomorphology was evolving as a discipline, and he was recognised by King as one of the founders of peneplanation theory. Geomorphological studies in Angola continued from the s to s by Portuguese researchers, including Marques , Feio and Amaral , whose work is summarised by Costa More recent research, in particular that on the evolution and of the major tectonic and erosional patterns across southern Africa Cotterill , ; Cotterill and De Wit and on the biogeography of the freshwater fishes of Angola Skelton provide a picture of a very dynamic landscape since the breakup of Gondwana in the late Cretaceous.
