Postage stamps and postal history of Namibia

Namibia, formerly known as South West Africa and German South West Africa, has a long history of postal services, starting in 1814 with postal runners delivering messages among mission stations. The first stamps were printed during the German colonial period. NamPost is responsible for running postal services, managing 135 postal offices in the country.

Pre-colonial period
The first postal services in Namibia (then known as South West Africa) started in 1814 with the deployment of messengers facilitating communication between the early mission stations at Warmbad and Bethanie and later to Keetmanshoop and Gross Barmen. This service was expanded in 1846, connecting the South West African mission stations to those in South Africa.

German colonial period
The first post office of South West Africa was founded in Otjimbingwe in 1888, further offices were established in Windhoek (1891) and Swakopmund (1895).

South African period
The South African Army overran the colony in 1914–15 and the territory was controlled by South Africa until Namibian independence in 1990.

Independent Namibia
Namibia has issued regular definitive and commemorative stamps since independence in 1989. NamPost is the company responsible for postal service in Namibia. It has 743 employees in 135 post offices, and reserves of N$2.51 million. CEO of NamPost is Festus Hangula.

In 1989, the last stamps of South West Africa were a set of 15 depicting minerals and mining. Shortly before their issue in 1990, the territory gained independence as Namibia. As the stamps were new, most of the designs were kept with only the name changed (cuprite was dropped and willemite added for the Namibian issue).

Another problem was that one of the stamps, for boltwoodite, had an error in its chemical equation. This was corrected in the Namibian issue.