There is a high density of smallholdings around the towns of Oshakati and Ongwediva and around the settlement of Uukwangula. Unoccupied areas outside the borders of the towns and settlement are drainage lines that flood from time to time. Most of these rural smallholdings cover less than 5 hectares and have been registered as customary land rights. Many of those close to towns are occupied by people who also work in those towns; their properties now produce little food and many have been subdivided into plots of half or a quarter of a hectare and sold.

More than almost any other, this map depicts many of the dynamics and competing interests found in communal areas.34 The regional boundary separates Oshikoto (left) and Kavango West (right). The government allocated two groups of farms to select individuals: before independence, 106 Mangetti farms in former Owamboland were allocated during the 1970s; and after independence, 44 Mangetti farms in Kavango Region were allocated between 1990 and 1995. The map shows some of these farms (outlined in yellow). These early allocations were followed, over the past 30 years, by the appropriation of hundreds of new, large farms in the Owambo and Kavango regions, most of them being at least 2,500 hectares in size. The farms have typically been allocated or appropriated with the agreement of the traditional authorities. Many long-time resident villagers have had their land expropriated and incorporated into these large farms. Most of these farms have subsequently been recognised by the government which has then offered their de facto owners long-term leaseholds. The majority of those displaced are San and other marginalised people who lead rudimentary lives in Kavango East, Kavango West, Ohangwena, Omaheke, Oshikoto and Otjozondjupa.

This map also illustrates the resilient presence of smallholders living and growing crops on relatively fertile soils along interdune valleys. Properties have been mapped and registered through the Oshikoto Communal Land Board bestowing customary land rights to residents. The Ukwangali Traditional Authority, however, has not allowed similar smallholders in Kavango West to register their properties. Other traditional authorities in Kavango West and Kavango East have taken the same stance, in spite of it being in contravention of the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002; they have, however, encouraged holders of large farms to register their land rights.

There is a great mix of landholdings in the communal areas of Otjozondjupa and Omaheke. Large, neatly bounded, surveyed farms, such as these Okamatapati farms east of Coblenz, were allocated to select Herero farmers before independence. About 90 similar farms were allocated in the Rietfontein area around Talismanus on the Botswana border. Others were established in the so-called Corridor Block east of Aminuis. Many of these farms, and other large pre-independence farms in communal areas, are now occupied by several families who are usually related to the original beneficiary.

Most people in these areas live on small residential plots in villages,35 each of which surrounds a water source with some arable soil nearby. Radiating around the villages are fenced camps, often called bull camps, used to hold livestock when they cannot be grazed elsewhere. At other times, cattle and goats forage further from their home villages. Some village grazing grounds are fenced, separating them from those of neighbouring villages, which in effect create agreed village territories.

Rural residents around the settlement of Kriess live in small villages, each centred on a water point. The parcels of customary land rights are very small; each family having its house, kraals and outbuildings within a hectare or less. Sheep and goats forage near the villages. Once these nearby food sources are depleted, livestock owners who have the means to transport water and employ herders move their animals to distant areas with good grazing and browse. Their animals do well by first foraging in the commons around villages and then by making use of distant food sources that have not yet been exploited. This is another example of the so-called tragedy of the commons, leaving little forage for the stock of owners without the means to move their animals.

Namibia has 14 administrative regions (left). Each is administered by a regional council, consisting of a governor and elected constituency councillors.38 Regional offices of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform are responsible for surveying land parcels and the registration of rights to them on communal land, while regional communal land boards adjudicate the applications for land rights.

Prior to independence (right), Namibia was divided into 10 ethnic districts or homelands and 17 separate magisterial districts in areas administered for white and coloured people.

Each region is divided into constituencies. Voters in each constituency elect a councillor to represent them on the regional council. In the past, these regional councillors would elect the governor for their region, but this changed in 2010 when the president gained the power to appoint the governor for each of the 14 regions. Namibia had 95 constituencies in 1992. Recommendations of successive delimitation commissions led the number of constituencies to grow to 102 in 1998, 107 in 2002, and 121 constituencies in 2013. The boundaries of many constituencies and regions are straight lines or follow visible features (roads or watercourses, for example) that do not respect social realities, such as a village boundary or traditional authority area.

Much of Namibia has been converted into large farms over the past 130 years. The process started in the south in the 1890s during the German colonial period, and continued during South African rule after 1920, and after independence in 1990. Over the same period large parts of Namibia were proclaimed as communal land or 'native reserves'. This process largely stopped with the implementation of the 1964 Odendaal Commission's recommendations, which also ended the division of Namibia between the northern Police Zone and the rest of the country to the south. (The approximate position of the division is shown by the orange line in the 1937 map.) By 1955, about 47 per cent of Namibia had been allocated to commercial farming. A few farms added after 1955 were the last new freehold farms to be sold to white farmers.

The Odendaal Commission made three proposals which led to most of the changes seen by comparing the 1955 and 2001 maps. The first was to establish ten ethnic areas or homelands. The second was to incorporate at least 426 freehold farms considered unsuited to farming into the homelands of Damaraland and Namaland.44 These came to be known as the 'Odendaal farms'. The third, was the major reduction in size of Etosha National Park.

The ethnic areas and other land allocations based on the Odendaal Commission's proposals largely remained in place until independence in 1990. An exception was the surveying of 355 large commercial farms for black Namibians, with a view to supporting their development as commercial farmers. These were allocated in Omaheke in the late 1960s, in Oshikoto during the 1970s, in Kavango East and Kavango West between 1976 and 1995, and in Otjozondjupa in the early 1980s.

The establishment of more large farms on communal lands followed independence, mainly in Kavango East, Kavango West, Ohangwena, Omaheke, Omusati, Oshikoto and Otjozondjupa. All were allocated by traditional authorities or simply appropriated by their new 'owners'. The exact number of farms is not known. However, of the 1,598 farms mapped for registration by 2020, 28 farms were over 10,000 hectares each, 572 farms were between 2,500 and 10,000 hectares, 545 farms were between 1,000 and 2,500 hectares and 354 farms were between 500 and 1,000 hectares in size. These farms cover approximately 3,700,000 hectares.45 The remaining farms were each smaller than 500 hectares.

The maps in 8.27 show how the administrations of Germany and then South Africa spread their influence through the occupation of land by white settlers, which resulted in indigenous pastoralists and hunter-gatherers being dispossessed of the land they used and inhabited. The reversal of that loss of land is at the root of Namibia's land resettlement programme: to transfer freehold land from previously advantaged to previously disadvantaged Namibians. In 2018, of 397,284 square kilometres of freehold land, 70 per cent was owned by previously advantaged Namibians or foreigners; 16 per cent was owned by previously disadvantaged Namibians; 7.7 per cent was allocated for the resettlement of previously disadvantaged Namibians; and 6.3 per cent was owned by government and state parastatals. Beneficiaries were awarded leaseholds for only 172 (35 per cent) of 496 farms allocated for resettlement between 1990 and 2018.48