Lesotho has Maseru, the world’s southernmost national capital city.
Maseru lies on the Caledon River along Lesotho’s western border with South Africa. Lesotho is a highland kingdom completely surrounded by South Africa, making it one of the world’s few enclaved countries and the only independent country entirely above 1,000 metres in elevation.
The capital developed as a settlement around the nineteenth-century kingdom of Moshoeshoe I, the founder of the Basotho nation. Lesotho became a British protectorate known as Basutoland and achieved independence in 1966.
Maseru is sometimes confused with Mbabane, the administrative capital of Eswatini, another southern African monarchy. Lesotho’s other major royal and historical centre is Thaba-Bosiu, a mountain plateau associated with Moshoeshoe I.