Highveld

Highveld
Natural region
Highveld in winter in Gauteng Province north of Johannesburg.
A map of South Africa showing the central plateau edged by the Great Escarpment and its relationship to the Highveld and Lesotho Highlands: The portion of the Great Escarpment shown in red is officially known as the Drakensberg, although most South Africans think of the Drakensberg as only that portion of the escarpment which forms the border between KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho. Here, the escarpment rises to its greatest height over 3000 m.
Country	South Africa
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

The Highveld is the portion of the South African inland plateau which has an altitude above roughly 1500 m, but below 2100 m, thus excluding the Lesotho mountain regions to the south-east of the Highveld. It is home to some of the country's most important commercial farming areas, as well as its largest concentration of metropolitan centres, especially the Gauteng conurbation, which accommodates one-third of South Africa's population.

The Highveld constitutes almost the whole of the Free State, and Gauteng Provinces, and portions of the surrounding areas: the western rim of Lesotho, and portions of the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North West, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga Provinces of South Africa. The highest part of the Highveld, around 2100 m, is its northeastern and only well-defined boundary, where the plateau escarpment (the Mpumalanga Drakensberg) separates it from the Mpumalanga Lowveld, (containing, amongst others, the Kruger National Park). The continuation of the Great Escarpment to the south separates the Highveld from KwaZulu-Natal. The south-eastern portion of the Great Escarpment (that portion of the Great Escarpment most commonly referred to as the Drakensberg) rises to over 3000 m and forms the boundary between KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho. The latter mountainous region is, however, not generally referred to as Highveld, whose boundary at this point runs just inside the Lesotho-Free State border, about 2000 m. From its eastern boundary, the Highveld slopes gently downwards to be bounded by the Great Karoo to the south, the Kalahari desert to the west, the Bushveld to the north, the Mpumalanga Lowveld to the northeast, KwaZulu-Natal to the east, and the Lesotho Highlands, or Mountains, to the southeast. The Highveld covers an area of almost 400,000 km², or roughly 30% of South Africa's land area.