Contents

- General Information
- Geography and Environment
- Population and HIV/AIDS
- Economy
- Communications, Information, Science and Technology
- Chronology of History

Geography and Environment

Location: Sub-Saharan Africa

Botswana lies in the center of the Southern Africa Plateau at a mean altitude of 1,000 m above sea level. The majority of the country is flat with gentle undulations. Along the eastern margin the land rises above 1,200 m, which is adjacent to the Limpopo drainage system. The Limpopo valley gradually descends from 900 m in the south to 500 m at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers.

The landlocked country borders Namibia to the west and northwest, Zambia to the north, Zimbabwe to the northeast, and South Africa to the east and south. In the northwest the Okavango River drains inland into an extensive swamp area. In the southwest, the Kalahari Desert is characterized by a vegetation composition of scrub and grasses with almost no surface water. Pans hold water for some time after the rains.

Geographic coordinates (approximate) [4]
Latitude: 18^o-27^o South
Longitude: 20^o-29^o East

Time zone: GMT +2

Land area [4]
Total: 582,000 km²
Maritime claims: 0 (landlocked)
Land boundaries: Total: 4,013 km

Climate
The climate is dry and semi-arid. The northern part of the country lies within the tropics, but because of the altitude and distance from the oceans, the climate is more temperate than tropical. Rainfall is low, erratic and unevenly distributed. It ranges from 650 mm in the northeast to less than 250 mm in Kgalagadi. Major rain falls during the summer months, between November and April. The mean temperatures vary according to the regions. Maximum temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius and may fall during the winter to 0 degrees Celsius in the extreme south.

Throughout the country, potential evapotranspiration far exceeds the rainfall. This means that agriculture without irrigation is only viable in some years, even during the wet months.

Natural resources: Diamonds, copper, nickel, coal, soda ash, salt, gold, potash, iron ore, silver [1]

Natural hazards, environmental problems: Floods; periods of droughts (the southern part of the country is most susceptible to drought); overgrazing; desertification; limited freshwater resources; veld fires [7]

Environment-international agreements [1]
Party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Nuclear Ban, Ozone Layer Protection
Signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Vegetation and terrestrial biomes [1, 5, 6, 7]

Eastern Botswana is shrub land with umbrella-shaped acacia species. Mophane is very common in the north and the baobab is seen around the makgadikgadi and eastern Botswana (Bobirwa area). The Kgalagadi has undulating sand dunes, short shrubs and a horizonless grassland with fossil rivers.

The Kalahari sands, with fossil rivers and fossil lakes, cover more than two-thirds of the country, while eastern Botswana is dotted with low hills, bare rocks and few perennial rivers. Large surfaces of water are found in the northwest, Okavango, Moremi and Chobe Rivers.

The ancient lakes of Okavango and Makgadikgadi are evidence of ancient tectonic movements in northern Botswana. Geologists believe that in earlier days the Okavanago and Chobe-Zambezi rivers flowed through the area of the Makgadikgadi to the middle Limpopo valley and then to the sea. But the folding of the earth's crust (tectonic) opened a new passage for the Zambezi to the Indian Ocean over Victoria Falls. It blocked off the old Zambezi-Limpopo course by a new ridge southeast of Makgadikgadi. The water backed up behind this ridge formed lake Makgadikgadi and Lake Okavango.

Present day drainage of the Okavango Delta is complex and not well understood. The perennial river flows southward into its delta across the Caprivi Strip, originating in Angola's highlands. Most of the water evaporates from the delta wetlands. During the 20th century less and less water flowed through the western side of the Okavango marshes, so that Lake Ngami is today dry and almost unrecognizable as a lake. Most rivers in Botswana are ephemeral and flow rarely above ground except during the rainy season.

Seventeen percent of the area of Botswana is reserved as parks. The country has adopted a policy of low-volume, high-cost for tourism, which is intended to facilitate protection of the fragile natural environment and stimulate sustainable tourism development. Among the major tourist attractions are the enigmatic Okavango Delta, said to be the largest inland delta in the world; Chobe National Park, home of the largest elephant population in the world; the golden sands of the vast Kalahari Desert; the Tuli Block with its rugged terrain and the Moremi Game Reserve.

Biodiversity [2]
The national estimates for species numbers for fauna are: 162 for mammals; 496 for birds; 38 for amphibians; 160 for reptiles; and 796 for insects.

Water use and deforestation:
Freshwater resources: 12,758 m³ per capita in 1998 [3]
Annual freshwater withdrawal: [3]

0.1 million m³ in any year from 1980 to 1998
0.4% of total resource in any year from 1980 to 1998
48% for agriculture, estimated for 1987
20% for industry, estimated for 1987
32% for domestic use, estimated for 1987

Water consumption in towns and cities (1,000 m³), 1997/98:
Gaborone 14,662; Lobatse 2,279; Jwaneng 1,297; Selebi Phikwe 4,724; Francistown 4,746; and Sowa 503 [2]

Annual deforestation, 1990-95 [1]: 4290 km2, 0.3% average annual change
Nationally protected areas, 1996 [1]: 106.2 km2, 13% of total land area

Sources:
[1] The Government of Botswana, http://www.gov.bw/home.html

[2] Botswana Central Statistics Office, Environment Statistics, http://www.4site.bw/cso/env_stats.html

[3] The World Bank. 2000. World Development Report 2000/2001. Attacking Poverty. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. The complete report is available on-line: http://worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/

[4] U.S. Department of State, Bureau of African Affairs, Background Notes. Botswana. 200 http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bc.html

[5] Botswana.com. Botswana. http://www.botswana.com/Dest/bots/geo.htm

[6] Neol, Parsons. Botswana History Pages. http://ubh.tripod.com/bw/bhpindex.htm

[7] CIA. World Factbook. Botswana. thttp://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bc.html

- General Information
- Geography and Environment
- Population and HIV/AIDS
- Economy
- Communications, Information, and Science and Technology
- Chronology of History