Portal:Botswana

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Coat of Arms of Botswana	Flag of Botswana

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Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70% of its territory being a part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, Zambia to the north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. Its total area is 581,730 square kilometres (224,610 sq mi). Gaborone, in the South-East District, is the country's capital and largest city.

Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. While it is not enshrined by statutory law, Botswana is de facto the nation state of the Batswana people, who constitute nearly 80% of the population while legally undistinguished Kalanga people, who account for another 11%, are the single largest ethnic minority.

The Batswana ethnic group are descended mainly from Bantu-speaking peoples who migrated into southern Africa, including modern Botswana, in several waves before AD 600. In 1885, the British colonised the area and declared a protectorate named Bechuanaland. As part of the decolonisation of Africa, Bechuanaland became an independent Commonwealth republic under its current name on 30 September 1966. Since then, it has been a parliamentary republic with a consistent record of uninterrupted democratic elections, though dominated by the Botswana Democratic Party until 2024, when the Umbrella for Democratic Change won the 2024 Botswana general election. (Full article...)

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Dow in 2011

Unity Dow (née Diswai; born 23 April 1959) is a Motswana lawyer, author, human rights activist, Vice President of Botswana Congress Party and Member of Parliament for Kgatleng West since October 2024. She formerly served as a judge on the High Court of Botswana and in various Botswana government ministries. Born in the Bechuanaland Protectorate to a seamstress and a farmer, who insisted on their children obtaining an education, Dow grew up in a traditional rural village before modernisation. She earned a law degree in 1983 from the University of Botswana and Swaziland, though her studies were completed in Swaziland and University of Edinburgh, Scotland, as Botswana had no law school at the time. After her graduation, Dow opened the first all-woman law firm in Botswana and in 1997 became the first woman to be appointed as a judge to the country's High Court.

During her time in law, Dow was involved in three historic cases in Botswana. In 1992, she was the plaintiff in the landmark legal case, Unity Dow v Attorney-General, which ended the gender discrimination in the nation's nationality laws that had previously not allowed children to derive nationality from their married mothers. The case gained Dow international attention and sparked a wave of changes eliminating gender disparity in nationality laws across Africa. In 2006, as the presiding judge in the case of Roy Sesana and Others v. the Government of Botswana, Dow ruled against the government's actions to prohibit the Basarwa indigenous people from living and hunting on their ancestral lands, forcing them to resettle outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. She ruled that the government had to restore basic services, allow the Basarwa to return to the land and obtain hunting permits, and pay damages to those who had been forcibly relocated if they chose not to return. In 2014, Dow served as legal counsel for LEGABIBO (Lesbians, Gays & Bisexuals of Botswana) in their case to register their organisation with the Department of Civil and National Registration and successfully received a ruling for the government to allow the organisation to be registered. (Full article...)

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... that the newly built Dikgatlhong Dam has far more capacity than the Gaborone Dam, formerly the largest in Botswana?

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A female African bush elephant in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania

Elephants are the largest living land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana), the African forest elephant (L. cyclotis), and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea; extinct relatives include mammoths and mastodons. Distinctive features of elephants include a long proboscis called a trunk, tusks, large ear flaps, pillar-like legs, and tough but sensitive grey skin. The trunk is prehensile, bringing food and water to the mouth and grasping objects. Tusks, which are derived from the incisor teeth, serve both as weapons and as tools for moving objects and digging. The large ear flaps assist in maintaining a constant body temperature as well as in communication. African elephants have larger ears and concave backs, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs.

Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. They live in different habitats, including savannahs, forests, deserts, and marshes. They are herbivorous, and they stay near water when it is accessible. They are considered to be keystone species, due to their impact on their environments. Elephants have a fission–fusion society, in which multiple family groups come together to socialise. Females (cows) tend to live in family groups, which can consist of one female with its calves or several related females with offspring. The leader of a female group, usually the oldest cow, is known as the matriarch. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Botswana-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Magadi (traditional wedding) (from Culture of Botswana)
Image 2Gaborone Dam (from Gaborone)
Image 3Kombi (Minibus taxi) (from Gaborone)
Image 4CBD Developments (from Gaborone)
Image 5Room 52 Roof Top Restaurant (from Gaborone)
Image 6Gaborone Hindu temple (from Gaborone)
Image 7 Tswana tribesmen, first Africans to compete at the Olympics (from Tswana people)
Image 8I-Towers, Gaborone Central Business District (from Economy of Botswana)
Image 9Gaborone Mosque (from Gaborone)
Image 10Gaborone Hindu Temple (from Gaborone)
Image 114th President of Botswana, King of Bamangwato (Khama IV) (from Tswana people)
Image 12Setswana traditional house (from Tswana people)
Image 13Botswana Gaborone I Towers (from Gaborone)
Image 14Tswana Baskets used for storing grain (from Tswana people)
Image 1518th Century Tswana Warrior (from Tswana people)
Image 16CBD Mall (from Gaborone)
Image 17Festus Mogae alongside foreign presidents Joaquim Chissano, George W. Bush, and José Eduardo dos Santos in 2002 (from History of Botswana)
Image 18A road in Gaborone (from Economy of Botswana)
Image 19Mochudi Village in the early 19th century) (from Tswana people)
Image 20Depiction of a Precolonial Homestead in the ancient City of Kaditshwene circa early 1400
Image 21Tourist resort at Kasane (from Economy of Botswana)
Image 22Orapa House (from Gaborone)
Image 23King Khama (III) of Bamangwato (from Tswana people)
Image 24Mokgweetsi Masisi speaking at a conference on the illegal wildlife trade in London in 2018 (from History of Botswana)
Image 25Seretse Khama signing the oath of office to become Botswana's first President in 1966 (from History of Botswana)
Image 26Bechuanaland Boys cleaning Aa Guns in the Twilight after Action, Syracuse, Sicily, 1944 art piece by Leslie Cole (from History of Botswana)
Image 27Flag of Bophuthatswana (from Tswana people)
Image 28Watch house in Gaborone Game Reserve (from Gaborone)
Image 29South African billionaire mining businessman, CAF President (from Tswana people)
Image 30Rev. Derek Jones, the first mayor of Gaborone
Image 31Universal Plaza building in Gaborone CBD (from Gaborone)
Image 32King Bathoen II 1947 of Bangwaketse (from Tswana people)
Image 33Aerial view over Okavango Delta (from Economy of Botswana)
Image 34Sir Seretse Khama International Airport (GBE) (from Gaborone)
Image 35Flag map of Gaborone (from Gaborone)
Image 36Francistown Stadium (from Francistown)
Image 37Quett Masire visiting the United States in 1984 (from History of Botswana)
Image 38Gaborone aerial (from Gaborone)
Image 39Gaborone Dam (from Gaborone)
Image 40Christ The King Cathedral (from Gaborone)
Image 41Young Tswana maiden dressed in Leteisi (from Tswana people)
Image 42Batswana men dressed in traditional attire during the visit of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret to Lobatse, Bechuanaland, on 17 April 1947 (from Tswana people)
Image 43South African ANC activist, writer and author, (from Tswana people)
Image 44Old Palapye Church built by King Khama III in 1891 (from Tswana people)
Image 45Botswana traditional house at the National Museum (from Culture of Botswana)
Image 46I-Tower at Central Business District (from Gaborone)
Image 47Kgosi Sekgoma II and leaders of the Bangwato Military regiments in Serowe during the royal visit of the Prince of Wales in June 1925. (from Tswana people)
Image 48New Construction Developments (from Gaborone)
Image 49St. Joseph's College students (from Gaborone)
Image 50Street scene near the Main Mall (from Gaborone)