Berea

Berea is one of Lesotho's lowland districts—adjacent to Maseru and bordering South Africa along the Caledon River. The district benefits from the AfDB-financed Lesotho Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project: 190km of pipelines, water storage tanks (3.48 million liters capacity), and 166 public water points now serve 28,266 people across eight zones in Berea and Maseru. Lesotho, the 'Kingdom in the Sky,' sits entirely above 1,800m elevation—the world's only country with all territory above this altitude. The nation functions as a regional water tower, exporting water to South Africa's Gauteng province via the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP). LHWP-II construction is helping offset declining diamond revenues and textile sector struggles: the Central Bank reports 5.3% economic contraction in early 2025 as US tariff uncertainty threatens 30,000 apparel jobs nationwide. Berea's economy combines subsistence agriculture with remittances from Basotho working in South African mines—a dependency pattern dating to the apartheid era. As an enclave entirely surrounded by South Africa, Lesotho's districts have no development path independent of their larger neighbor.