Year inscribed: 2003
Location: Limpopo, 22º 11' 33" S 29º 14' 20" E
Type: Cultural heritage
As a free-standing rock structure rising 30 metres above the surrounding grasslands, the Mapungubwe Iron Age site, once the capital of the Mapungubwe Kingdom, is topped by impregnable cliffs all around -- an imposing location indeed.
Mapungubwe, meaning "place of the stone of wisdom", was South Africa's first kingdom, and developed into Southern Africa's largest realm, lasting for 400 years before it was abandoned in the 14th century. Mapungubwe's highly sophisticated people traded gold and ivory with China, India and Egypt.
The Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site lies on the open savannah of the Mapungubwe National Park, at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers in the Limpopo province of South Africa.
The sites crossroads location adjacent to the northern border of South Africa and the borders of Zimbabwe and Botswana, helps explain the Mapungubwe Kingdom's prosperous past as an important trading centre, particularly at the height of its power, between about 1220 and 1300 AD.
Since its discovery in 1932, the Mapungubwe Iron Age site has been excavated by the University of Pretoria. However, the findings were kept from public attention until 1993, just prior to South Africa's first democratic elections, because evidence of a highly advanced indigenous society existing centuries before European colonialism spread across Africa ran contrary to the racist ideology of apartheid.
"The remains in the Mapungubwe cultural landscape are a remarkably complete testimony to the growth and subsequent decline of the Mapungubwe state," the World Heritage Committee says in its assessment.
"What survives are the almost untouched remains of the palace sites and also the entire settlement area dependent upon them, as well as two earlier capital sites, the whole presenting an unrivalled picture of the development of social and political structures over some 400 years."
South Africa's seven World Heritage Sites are:
 Cradle of Humankind
Greater St Lucia Wetland Park
Robben Island
uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park
Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape
Cape Floral Region
Vredefort Dome
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