The start of the Skeleton Coast at Swakopmund

Perhaps one of the most well-known areas of Namibia is its Skeleton Coast. This constitutes the world’s biggest grave site, with as many as 500 ships estimated to be scattered along the coast; from wooden Portuguese galleons submerged hundreds of years ago to modern steel-hulled ships. In modern times most give the coast this name because of the shipwrecks, indeed Portuguese sailors once referred to it as ‘The Gates of Hell’, but it actually got its name from whale and seal bones that once littered the coastline from the whaling industry. Namibian Bushmen are believed to have called this coastline ‘the land God made in anger’. It's 25 miles wide and 311 miles long, stretching from the old German colonial town of Swakopmund all the way to the Angolan border in the north.