Botswana Travel Guide - Key Facts

Central southern Africa.

GMT + 2.

581,730 sq km (224,607 sq miles).

1.7 million (UN estimate 2006).

3.1 per sq km.

Gaborone. Population: 208,411 (estimate 2005).

Botswana is bordered to the south and east by South Africa, to the northeast by Zimbabwe, to the north and west by Namibia and touches Zambia just west of the Victoria Falls. The tableland of the Kalahari Desert covers most of Botswana. National parks cover 17% of the country, with 38% of the country dedicated to wildlife areas. To the northwest is the Okavango Delta, the largest inland delta in the world. The Moremi Game Reserve occupies two-thirds of the delta’s area. The Chobe National Park in the north includes the Savute and Linyanti regions. To the far southwest is the Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park, which ranges across the borders of Botswana, South Africa and Namibia, but is managed as a single entity. The majority of the population lives in the southeast around Gaborone, Serowe and Kanye along the South African border. The vast arid sandveld of the Kalahari occupies much of north, central and western Botswana. The seasonal rains bring a considerable difference to the vegetation, especially in the Makgadikgadi Pans and the Okavango Delta in the north. The latter, after the winter floods, provides one of the wildest and most beautiful nature reserves in Africa.

Republic since 1966.

President Festus Gontebanye Mogae since 1998.

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has dominated the country’s politics since independence, having won all six sets of national elections since then. The latest of these was in 2004 at which Festus Mogae won the BDP a new five-year term by a landslide majority. The main opposition party is the Botswana National Front (BNF).

The government’s main domestic priority is to tackle the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Abroad, Botswana has benefited both politically and economically from the advent of democratic government in Pretoria. Botswana is beginning to feel the effects of the disintegration of neighbouring Zimbabwe, mainly in the form of thousands of migrants who have turned to Botswana to escape food shortages and political repression.

English is the official language. Setswana is the national language, with minorities speaking Kalanga and Sekgalagadi.

Christianity, Roman Catholic and indigenous beliefs. There are numerous small Zionist and Apostolic churches in rural villages, as well as United Reformed (Congregational and Methodist), Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Methodist and Anglican churches, and predominantly expatriate Muslim, Quaker, Hindu and Bahai congregations in major towns.

220-240 volts AC, 50Hz. 15- and 13-amp plug sockets are in use. Plugs used are British-style with two flat blades and one flat grounding blade, and South African/Indian-style with two circular metal pins above a large circular grounding pin.

As most people in Botswana follow their traditional pattern of life, visitors should be sensitive to customs which will inevitably be unfamiliar to them. Outside urban areas, people may well not be used to visitors. Casual clothing is acceptable and, in urban centres, normal courtesies should be observed.

Photography: Airports, official residences and defence establishments should not be photographed. Permission should be obtained to photograph local people.