San people
Members of various indigenous hunter-gatherer people of Southern Africa / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Bushmen" redirects here. For other uses, see Bushman.
The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region.[1] Their recent ancestral territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho,[2] and South Africa.
Quick Facts Total population, Regions with significant populations ...
Total population | |
---|---|
~105,000 | |
Regions with significant populations | |
![]() | 63,500 |
![]() | 27,000 |
![]() | 10,000 |
![]() | <5,000 |
![]() | 1,200 |
Languages | |
Languages of the Khoe, Kxʼa, and Tuu families, English, Portuguese, Afrikaans | |
Religion | |
San religion, Christianity | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Khoekhoe, Coloureds, Basters, Griqua, Sotho, Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, Ndebele, Pedi, Tswana, Lozi |
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![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/KhoisanLanguagesModernDistribution.png/640px-KhoisanLanguagesModernDistribution.png)
The San speak, or their ancestors spoke, languages of the Khoe, Tuu, and Kxʼa language families, and can be defined as a people only in contrast to neighboring pastoralists such as the Khoekhoe and descendants of more recent waves of immigration such as the Bantu, Europeans, and Asians.
In 2017, Botswana was home to approximately 63,500 San, making it the country with the highest proportion of San people at 2.8%.[3]