Botswana is a landlocked country in southern Africa, much of it taken up by the great Kalahari Desert, yet also home to the lush wetland of the Okavango Delta and abundant wildlife. Sparsely populated and arid, it is one of Africa's quiet success stories: from being among the poorest countries in the world at independence, it transformed itself, on the strength of diamonds and good governance, into a stable middle-income democracy widely admired as a model for the continent.
The land was long inhabited by the San, or Bushmen, among the oldest cultures on Earth, who left rock art across the region, and later by Bantu-speaking Tswana peoples organised into chiefdoms. In the late nineteenth century, fearing absorption by Cecil Rhodes's company or the Boers, several Tswana chiefs travelled to Britain to seek protection, and the territory became the British protectorate of Bechuanaland. It gained independence in 1966 as Botswana, under Seretse Khama, just as diamonds were discovered that would transform its fortunes.
A traditional origin story tells that the first people and animals emerged into the world from a deep hole in the ground, led by a one-legged giant ancestor named Matsieng, who left his footprints, and those of the creatures that followed, in the rock around the spring. Footprint-like marks at the site are pointed to as evidence of the tale. As literal history the emergence from the earth belongs to legend and myth, but the story preserves an ancient sense of belonging to the land.
Botswana is a flat, dry country, the great majority of it covered by the sands of the Kalahari, a vast semi-desert of scrub and grassland rather than bare dunes, that supports surprising amounts of wildlife. Its most remarkable feature is the Okavango Delta in the northwest, where a great river, instead of reaching the sea, spreads out and vanishes into the desert, creating a lush maze of channels, lagoons, and islands teeming with animals. Salt pans, the remnants of an ancient lake, stretch across the north.
The flag of Botswana is light blue, crossed in the centre by a black horizontal stripe edged in white. The blue represents water, and above all rain, so precious in this dry land that the national motto is simply the word for rain, and the same word serves as the name of the currency. The black stripe with its white borders represents the harmony and cooperation between the country's peoples, of different races, and the pattern is a quiet statement of unity.
The majority of people in Botswana are Christians, the result of missionary activity during the colonial era, belonging to a range of Protestant churches, including large independent African churches that blend Christian worship with local tradition, as well as the Roman Catholic Church. Traditional African beliefs, with their reverence for ancestors, remain influential and are often held alongside Christianity. The country is known for religious tolerance, and faith plays an important part in community and family life.
Botswanan cuisine is based on staples suited to a dry, cattle-rearing land. Sorghum and maize are made into porridges, the stiff staple known as pap or bogobe, eaten with relishes and stews. Beef is central to the culture and the diet, reflecting the country's strong cattle-herding tradition, and a famous national dish is seswaa, meat boiled until tender and pounded. A distinctive delicacy is the mopane worm, the dried, protein-rich caterpillar of the mopane moth, a traditional food across the region.
Agriculture is limited in Botswana by the dryness of the land, and crop farming, mostly of sorghum, maize, and beans, is small-scale and vulnerable to drought. Cattle ranching, however, is deeply important, both economically and culturally: cattle are a traditional measure of wealth, and beef is a significant export. The true foundation of the modern economy, though, is mining, above all diamonds, which Botswana has managed with notable prudence to become one of the world's leading producers.
The ancient San cultures, the Tswana chiefdoms, and the appeal of the chiefs for British protection shaped the country's history. The defining event of modern Botswana was the discovery of diamonds shortly after independence in 1966, which the country, under wise leadership beginning with Seretse Khama, used to transform itself from one of the poorest nations on Earth into a stable, middle-income democracy, often held up as a rare example of how natural wealth can be managed for broad benefit.
Botswana has a population of around 2.6 million people in a country the size of France, making it one of the most sparsely populated in the world. The great majority are Tswana, alongside other groups including the San and various minorities, speaking Setswana and the official English. The population is concentrated in the more fertile eastern strip of the country, along the line of rail, and in the capital, Gaborone. Botswana is noted for its political stability and one of Africa's longest unbroken records of democracy.
