Karas Region
ǁKaras, Namibia's largest and emptiest region, contains Fish River Canyon, Sperrgebiet diamond fields, and Kolmanskop's abandoned mining ghost town.
ǁKaras stretches across Namibia's southern expanse as the country's largest and least densely populated region, its 161,325 km² containing the Fish River Canyon—the world's second-largest canyon—and the diamond fields that created and abandoned ghost towns along the coast. Keetmanshoop serves as capital for territory where vast emptiness is the defining feature.
The Sperrgebiet (Prohibited Area) along the coast contains Oranjemund's diamond operations, the Namdeb partnership between De Beers and the Namibian government extracting alluvial gems that the Orange River deposited over geological time. These diamonds, 95-98% gem quality, formed in South Africa or Botswana and traveled to Namibia's shores—geological heritage that mining monetizes while creating restricted zones that limit other development.
Kolmanskop's abandoned buildings, half-buried in sand, represent the boom-and-bust pattern that diamond economies produce—once among Africa's richest towns in 1910, now a tourist attraction for its ghost-town aesthetics. Lüderitz's harbor and fishing industry provide employment beyond extraction, while Fish River Canyon hiking attracts visitors whose spending supplements the limited economic activity that extreme aridity permits.