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Fish River Canyon
Africa's largest canyon, a vast ravine in Namibia's arid south
In the parched far south of Namibia the earth splits open into Fish River Canyon, the largest canyon in Africa and one of the biggest on Earth, a ravine some 160 kilometres long and up to 27 wide. The view from the rim is austere and immense: a winding gorge of bare, sun-baked rock dropping nearly 550 metres to a river that shrinks to chains of pools through the long dry season. In a country defined by emptiness and space, it is the grandest of all the empty landscapes.
The canyon is the product of an ancient, two-stage history, deep faulting that opened the rift hundreds of millions of years ago, followed by the slow downcutting of the Fish River, Namibia's longest interior river, through the resistant rock. It runs about 160 kilometres and reaches nearly 550 metres deep, the river meandering in great loops along its floor. For much of the year the Fish is little more than a string of pools, swelling only in the brief rains, and the surrounding plateau is one of the driest places in southern Africa.
The hot springs at Ai-Ais, at the canyon's southern end, have drawn people for generations, and the gorge lies within a transfrontier park shared by Namibia and South Africa. Its most famous draw is the multi-day Fish River Canyon hike, a demanding trek along the canyon floor open only in the cooler months, when the heat eases enough for the journey. Otherwise the canyon keeps its silence, a place of bare rock, deep time, and the slow work of water in an almost rainless land.