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Friday 29th March
Lesotho Facts
The highest point in Lesotho is Thabana Ntlenyana (3,482 m). This is also the highest peak in southern Africa.

The Kingdom of Lesotho is completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa.

Lesotho is known as the Mountain Kingdom, the Kingdom in the Sky and the Roof of Africa.

The Tlaeeng Pass, in the north of Lesotho, is 3,275 metres above sea level; it is the highest road in Africa.

Maletsunyane Falls (192 m drop) is the highest single drop waterfall in southern Africa.

Dinosaur footprints can be found in many sites in Lesotho.

A dinosaur is named after Lesotho. Lesothosaurus was one metre long and lived around two hundred million years ago.

Ancient rock art by the San people can be seen in Lesotho.

Chief Moshoeshoe founded the mountain kingdom in 1824. Lesotho was known as Basutoland.

Moshoeshoe had a mountain fortress at Thaba Bosiu.

Basutoland became a British Protectorate in 1865. In 1871 the British annexed the kingdom.

Maseru, the capital, is the only sizeable city in Lesotho.

The inhabitants of Lesotho are known as the Basotho; the singular is Mosotho.

The Basotho Hat, a national symbol, is said to be made in the conical shape of Mount Qiloane.

As well as the Basotho Hat, Basotho on horseback wear a traditional garment called a Kobo, a blanket wrapped around the shoulders.

Horses and Basotho ponies are used to travel the mountainous terrain.

Basutoland was renamed the Kingdom of Lesotho when it gained independence from the UK in 1966.

The Kingdom of Lesotho is one of the last monarchies in Africa. The others are Swaziland and Morocco.

Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth.

After three years of drought, a state of emergency was declared in 2004; many thousands of people faced food shortages.

The national AIDS programme is an integrated approach towards the prevention and control of the disease. In 2004 the Prime Minister was tested in public to encourage people to take HIV tests.

A state if emergency was declared in July 2007 when Lesotho suffered its worst drought in thirty years.

At the end of March 2023 a motion was raised in Parliament to consider reclaiming Free State and four other provinces of Lesotho's territory in South Africa.

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