The Land
The People
The Government

The Land

Botswana is a land-locked nation centred in Sub-Saharan Africa with an impressive biodiversity comprised of both desert (the Kgalagadi / Kalahari of central and western districts) and wetlands (the Okavango Delta and Chobe region of the north). This region of 600,370 km² is encircled by the neighbouring nations of Namibia to the west, Zambia to the north, Zimbabwe to the east, and South Africa to the south.

Botswana's terrain is predominantly flat with gently rolling hills and occasionally rocky tablelands, its highest point reached at the Tsodilo Hills (1,489 m). The country's climate is semiarid, and the Kalahari Desert is, thus, characterized by plentiful bush flora and fauna.

As in all of Africa, land sustains life. Botswana's natural resources - diamonds, copper, nickel, salt, soda ash, potash, coal, iron ore and silver - generate much national revenue, particularly in the diamond mining industry. Cattle-rearing is the most significant agricultural enterprise. Small farmers rely on cattle, goats, sheep, maize, sorghum, beans, peanuts, cottonseed and other dry land crops. Beef exports to Europe represent Botswana's second largest income generator, and the booming tourism industry, currently third, may soon overtake the beef industry as the nation seeks to diversify its economy.

The People

Botswana's main income generator - diamond mining industry

Botswana's massive terrain boasts, in proportion, a relatively small population of only 1.6 million people (2001 Census results pending), the settlement of which is mostly concentrated in the eastern reaches of the country. The people of Botswana - Batswana (plural) - identify with numerous local ethnic groups such as the Bangwato, Bakgatla, Bakwena, Batawana, Bakalanga, Batswapong, Barolong, Bangwaketse, Bayeyi, Basarwa, Bakgalagadi, Babirwa and Baherero. The nation's colonial status as a British Protectorate until 1965 introduced English as Botswana's official language. Setswana and its myriad dialects, however, are maintained as the national language of Botswana and are being used increasingly in government and official business.

Botswana, like all developing nations, has faced increased urbanisation in recent decades. The traditional lifestyle of migration amongst three homesteads - the cattlepost (moraka), the lands (masimo) and the village (motse) - has now evolved to include urban lifestyle and settlement. Roughly half of the nation's population works and lives (at least part-time) in towns like Palapye, Mahalapye, Selebi-Phikwe and Francistown, and particularly in Botswana's growing capital city, Gaborone.

Botswana, having negotiated its independence from Britain, has enjoyed relative peace and harmony amidst neighbouring countries that took up arms for freedom. Batswana are still known for peace in the region, but the nation, nevertheless, now also faces the contemporary and potentially divisive challenges of tribalism, xenophobia, and globalisation.

A visitor to Botswana will encounter the beautifully animated traditions of Setswana dance and song, mud dwellings with thatched grass roofs, and traditional meeting places, or dikgotla. The village landscape is characterised by many cattle kraals, for the majority of Batswana continue to rear cattle according to tradition. Setswana traditional religion centres on such a connection with the ancestral gods, or badimo.

The Government

Statue of the first Botswana's President - Sir Seretse Khama in front of the Parliament

The modern government of Botswana is best described as a democratic, multiparty system with executive, legislative and judicial branches. The President, His Excellency Festus G. Mogae, is both the chief of state and head of government. This head of state is elected for a five-year term, the next elections to be held in October of 2004. Botswana's parliament is bicameral, which is comprised of the House of Chiefs and the National Assembly. The former is a fifteen-member body consisting of chiefs (dikgosi) of the eight tribes recognised at independence with an advisory role on matters of custom, culture and tradition to the latter, a National Assembly comprised of forty-four voting members. Since Botswana's independence in 1966, a single political party has been in power - the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) - under the leadership of three presidents: Sir Seretse Khama, Sir Ketumile Masire and the current President Festus Mogae.