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PHYSICAL FEATURES OF SOUTH AFRICA

CHAPTER 3 – Unit 4

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Unit 4: Physical features and human activities

  1. PEOPLE AND PHYSICAL FEATURES
  2. People will live in places where they can work, find food and build settlements.
  3. There are many things that influences where people lives. Example of some:
  4. Water
  5. Flat land
  6. Resources
  7. Good farmlands
  8. Wood, minerals and rocks for building.

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  • However, some people chooses to live on certain physical features. But the reasons choosing where to live are:

a) People and mountains

  • Few people live there because the land is too steep for settlements and farms. This is because the soil is not good for farming. It is difficult to build roads and the weather is either very cold or wet.

b) People and flat land

  • Many people lives in areas where the land is flat because it is easy to make farms. There are rivers for farms and factories, and there is more space to build settlements and roads.

c) People and the coast

- Many people live and works near the coast. This is because there are harbors for ships. People can make a living from fishing. The land is flat for building houses and factories and the soil is good for farming.

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2. WAYS PEOPLE CHANGE THE LAND

  • We know that the land is full of nature. Meaning rivers, trees, soil, grass, and so on. But people can change the way the land looks and the way it is.
  • People change the land by cutting down trees and taking out plants to make fields to build settlements, farms and roads.
  • Road building
  • People build roads to make it easy to get to places. It changes the land when trees and plants are removed. It destroys the homes of some animals. It changes the way rivers flow, and it changes the look of the land.

b) Building dams

- A dam is a huge wall that stops the flow of a river. It causes the water to collect behind the wall. This is a method of storing a lot of water for settlements and farms.

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  • Dams can spread over a large area of land taking up space. It can even cover villages and settlements that were there before the dam. It forces people to move.
  • Dams changes the flow of the river and can limit the amount of water people at the bottom of the river where the dam is built, is able to get.