Botswana is one of Africa’s most unspoiled wilderness areas and was formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland. Here you experience a land of nature and endless horizons, blue skies, sunshine and cooling breezes. About the size of France, the human population here is particularly low with about 1.3 million people including the nomadic San or Bushmen of the Kalahari. This low population density has protected the land and Botswana is perhaps Africa’s most pristine nation. The few people that you do meet will welcome you with friendly smiles and will enthusiastically share with you their homeland and their knowledge. Over two thirds of the country is covered by the magnificent Kalahari Desert while in the north lies the Okavango Delta, a unique inland river system and the world’s largest inland delta. To the south-east are the vast salt pans and grasslands of the Makgadikgadi and Nxai Pans. In these diverse habitats can be found all the large mammals of the continent; elephant, buffalo, red lechwe, lion and cheetah occur in good numbers and Botswana has the largest remaining population of the endangered African Painted Hunting Dog. Over 500 species of birds have been identified along with reptiles and smaller mammals.
Chobe, Chobe National Park is situated in the north-east of Botswana and combines river flood plains with open pans and riverine woodlands. The best time to visit is from May to September when you will be thrilled by the huge herds of elephant and buffalo that have made the park famous. In addition there are big numbers of hippopotamus, giraffe, kudu and impala and more than 250 species of birds have been recorded.

Makgadikgadi, Pans National Park were once a huge prehistoric lakes, they dried up only 10,000 years ago and today they are salt plains, grasslands and isolated “islands” of vegetation, baobab and palm trees. Most of the time they appear as glaring, white, endless plains but during the rainy season they are one of the most important wetland areas in Botswana. There are Bushman hunting shelters and sacred sites and the shorelines of Makgadikgadi are littered with archaeological relics including Stone Age tools.

Linyanti, Savute and Selinda, areas are home to huge quantities of wildlife including big herds of buffalo and elephant, and predators, particularly lions and hyenas. The Linyanti Wildlife Reserve is a private reserve shared by a very small number of private camps, ensuring that guests are able to view the abundant wildlife privately and exclusively. The Savute channel is a now dry “waterway” that connects the Linyanti River with the interior of the Chobe National Park, ending at the Savute marsh. The Selinda (or Magweqana) Spillway is a shallow channel connecting the Panhandle region of the Okavango Delta with the Chobe River system.

The Moremi, Wildlife Reserve on the north-eastern edge of the Okavango Delta packs acacia forests, wetlands, lagoons and swamps into 1,800 sq km (700 sq miles). As varied as the terrain is, so is the game. From lion and leopard to elephant and buffalo right down to the bird-life, even the least inspired ornithologists will be amazed.

Okavango, Rivers flow to the ocean – not so the Okavango, which originates in Angola and spills back inland to the sands of the Kalahari Desert where it fans out and forms a vast delta of wetlands and waterways. At the flood this is quite literally a land of water; lagoons dotted with lilies, narrow channels that are invaded by papyrus reeds, islands and shallow sheets of water that glisten in the sun. This bounty attracts a huge variety of mammals and bird species, though on occasion they are almost secondary to the sheer wonder of the setting.
BOTSWANA FACTS

Country     Republic of Botswana, Known as Botswana and formerly Bechuanaland
Capital     Gaborone
Government type     Parliamentary Republic
Independence     Independence Day (Botswana Day), 30 September (1966)
Population     1,591,232 (July 2002 est.)
Nationality     Noun is Motswana (singular), Batswana (plural)
Adjective     Motswana (singular), Batswana (plural)
Ethnic groups

Tswana (or Setswana) 78% : Kalanga 11% : Basarwa 4% : other including Kgalagadi and white 7%
Religions

Indigenous beliefs 85%, Christian 15%
Languages

English (official) / Setswana
Currency     Pula (BWP), Pula means rain which is considered very precious in this dry land
Area     With a total of 600,370 sq km, Botswana is slightly smaller than Texas
Borders

Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe & is land locked
Economic overview

Botswana has maintained one of the world’s highest growth rates since independence in 1966 and through fiscal discipline and good management, has transformed itself from one of the poorest countries in the world to a middle-income country with a per capita GDP of $7,800 in 2001. Diamond mining currently accounts for ore than one-third of GDP and for four-fifths of export earnings. Tourism, subsistence farming, and cattle are the other key sectors. On the downside, the government must deal with high rates of unemployment, poverty and HIV/AIDS infection rates that are amongst the highest in the world.