San people
The San peoples (also Saan), Hottentot, Bushmen or Basarwa, are the members of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. Their recent ancestral territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. They speak, or their ancestors spoke, languages of the Khoe, Tuu and Kxʼa language families, and are seen by outsiders as a people only in contrast to neighboring pastoralists such as the Khoekhoe.
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| ~105,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Botswana | 63,500 |
| Namibia | 27,000 |
| South Africa | 10,000 |
| Angola | <5,000 |
| Zimbabwe | 1,200 |
| Languages | |
| All languages of the Khoe, Kx'a, and Tuu language families, English, Portuguese | |
| Religion | |
| San religion, Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Khoekhoe, Coloureds, Basters, Griqua, Sotho, Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, Ndebele, Pedi, Tswana, Lozi | |
It has now been established that San people also share the same Haplogroup A (M91) with various groups in East Africa, such as the Dinka, Shilluk, Nuba, Nama, !Kung/Sekele, Borgu, Nuer, Fur, Maasai, Nara, Masalit, Amhara, Ethiopians, Bantu, Khwe, Fulbe, Dama, Oromo, Kunama etc. San People from Southern Africa also share Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup Lo with Sandawe people of Tanzania, Mozambican people, Hadramawt (Yemen), Balanta of Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Senegal, Cape Verde and The Gambia.
Recent studies have proved that Nelson Mandela (who was of the Tembu tribe which is part of the Xhosa ethnic group) took a DNA test which revealed that almost half his ancestry was Khoisan or San.
In 2017, Botswana was home to approximately 63,500 San, making it the country with the highest proportion of San people at 2.8%.