The Maloti-Drakensberg mountain range is a stretch of approximately 300 km of escarpment separating eastern Lesotho and the provinces of KwaZulu Natal and the Orange Free State in South Africa. It was declared a World Heritage Site in November 2000 and has since been called the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park. Known to the Zulus as uKhahlamba ( “Barrier of Spears Pointing to the Sky”) and to the Dutch settlers as the Drakensberg (“Dragon Mountain”), the name reflects the multi-cultural history of this spectacular 5 000 km² wilderness area.

The World Heritage Convention lists sites which are unique and of outstanding value to humanity. The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park met two natural and two cultural criteria set down by the Convention.

The natural criteria that were met are that:

• the park is a place of great natural beauty and aesthetic importance;
• it contains a rich diversity of fauna and flora.

The two cultural criteria that were met are:

• the presence of San (Bushman) rock art dating back over a period of at least 4 000 years representing the largest and most concentrated group of paintings in southern Africa, outstanding in both their quality and diversity, these being masterpieces of the human creative genius;
• the fact that these paintings bare testimony to the spiritual life and beliefs of a people who no longer live there.