The political geographic entity of Namibia is an unfortunate artifact of geopolitical history. It is composed of the territorities that the early European colonial powers did not want. It is largely desert except for the north. The Portuguese in Angola did not want the southern bank of the Cunene River so it was left unclaimed. The Dutch and later the British in Southern Africa did not want the desert. Britain did take possession of the harbor that later became known as Waalvis Bay. The rest, erroneously, was thought to be of no value.

Germany, the late comer to the African colonolization business, then fell heir to what later became known as Namibia. The extreme example of this phenomenon is the Caprivi Strip. The Caprivi Strip, completely unrelated geographically to the rest of Namibia, was just the territory between the claims of the British and Portuguese. Namibia is thus a collection of scraps of territory that the Germans put together as Southwest Africa.