Botswana Information & Facts
Location: Botswana is in Southern Africa, north of
South Africa
Climate: The climate is semiarid; warm winters and
hot summers
Population: Estimate as of July 2007 is 1,815,508.
Life Expectancy: 50.58 years.
Language: Setswana 78.2%, Kalanga 7.9%,
Sekgalagadi 2.8%, English
2.1% (official), other 8.6%,
unspecified 0.4
Government type: Parliamentary Republic
Capital: Gaborone
Population Below Poverty
Line: 30.3%
Agricultural Products: livestock,
sorghum, maize, millet,
beans, sunflowers,
groundnuts
Industries: diamonds,
copper, nickel, salt, soda
ash, potash; livestock
processing; textiles
Currency: Pula (BWP)
Attractions & Features: Tourism
plays a large role in the
Botswana economy. A number
of national parks and game
reserves, with their
abundant wildlife and
wetlands, are a top draw for
tourists. The wildlife,
including lions, brown
hyenas, cheetas, leopards,
wild dogs and antelope, were
described in great detail in
the best-selling book "Cry
of the Kalahari" by Mark and
Delia Owens.
The main safari destinations
for tourism are Moremi Game
Reserve in the Okavango
Delta, and Chobe National
Park. Botswana is also
participating in community
based natural resource
management projects by
trying to involve villagers
in tourism. One example is
the village of Khwai and its
Khwai Development Trust.
Botswana was the location
for the 1980 movie The Gods
Must Be Crazy.
People of Note:
- Bessie Head is a well-known Botswana writer. She
fled the apartheid
regime in South Africa
to live in and write
about Botswana. She
lived there from 1964
(when it was still the
Bechuanaland
Protectorate) until her
death at the age of 49
in 1986.
- Norman Rush, who served as a Peace Corps director
in Botswana from 1978 to
1983, uses the country
as the setting of all of
his published books,
which generally focus on
the expatriate
community.
- Unity Dow (born 1959) is a judge, human rights
activist, and writer
from Botswana. She came
from a rural background
that tended toward
traditional values of
the African kind.
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