Lesotho is a country in Southern Africa that is landlocked. Lesotho, a picturesque region of lofty mountains and tiny valleys, owes its long history of political independence to the mountains that surround it and defend it from expansion. The mountain kingdom has been the territory of Khoisan-speaking hunter-gatherers since the Neolithic Period. The Sotho, led by Moshoeshoe I, acquired control of the region in the nineteenth century. It was a British protectorate until it became one of three British High Commission Territories (the others being Bechuanaland [now Botswana] and Swaziland).

Four-fifths of the population is Christian, with Roman Catholicism being the dominant denomination; other denominations include Lesotho Evangelical, Presbyterian, and Anglican. There are also independent churches and Zionist sects (tiny African sects that mix Pentecostal Christianity and local ceremonial ism). Other religions, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as traditional religions, are practised by tiny percentages of the population. Some Christians believe in traditional religious ideas as well.