The ancestors of the Sotho people (also Basotho or Basuto) have lived in southern Africa since around the fifth century.

The Sotho nation emerged from the accomplished diplomacy of Moshoeshoe I who gathered together disparate clans of Sotho-Tswana origin that had dispersed across southern Africa in the early 19th century.

Most Sotho today live in South Africa, as the area of the Orange Free State was originally part of Moshoeshoe's nation (modern day Lesotho).