Bushmen

San people

San children, Namibia.
Total population
(90,000)
Regions with significant populations
Botswana (55,000), Namibia (27,000), South Africa (10,000), Angola (<5,000), Zimbabwe (1,200)
Languages
all languages of the Khoe, Kx'a, and Tuu language families
Religion
San religion
Related ethnic groups
Khoikhoi, Basters, Griqua

The San people (or Saan), also known as Bushmen or Basarwa, are members of various indigenous hunter-gatherer people of Southern Africa, whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. There is a significant linguistic difference between the northern people living between the Okavango River in Botswana and Etosha National Park in northwestern Namibia, extending up into southern Angola; the central people of most of Namibia and Botswana, extending into Zambia and Zimbabwe; and the southern people in the central Kalahari towards the Molopo River, who are the last remnant of the previously extensive indigenous San of South Africa.

The ancestors of the hunter-gatherer San people are considered to have been the first inhabitants of what is now Botswana and South Africa. The historical presence of the San in Botswana is particularly evident in northern Botswana's Tsodilo Hills region. In this area, stone tools and rock art paintings date back thousands of years. The San were traditionally semi-nomadic, moving seasonally within certain defined areas based on the availability of resources such as water, game animals, and edible plants. As of 2010, the San population in Botswana numbers about 50,000 to 60,000.

From the 1950s through the 1990s, the San switched to farming because of government-mandated modernisation programs. Despite the lifestyle changes, they have provided a wealth of information in anthropology and genetics. One broad study of African genetic diversity completed in 2009 found that the San were among the five populations with the highest measured levels of genetic diversity among the 121 distinct African populations sampled. The San are one of 14 known extant "ancestral population clusters". That is, "groups of populations with common genetic ancestry, who share ethnicity and similarities in both their culture and the properties of their languages".