Botswana is very flat, with about 70% of its land area being made up of the Kalahari desert, with very diverse wildlife.
The area now known as Botswana has been inhabited since the dawn of humanity, with there being evidence of stone tools dating back two million years. The first known modern humans to live in Botswana were the San people circa 2300 BC, then the Bantu people in 200 CE, then the Tswana in 400 CE. Tswana people split into various tribes across the region over the next millennium, until the Mfecane, a period in the 1800s of heightened military conflict and forced migration of the ethnic groups in the region. Due to lack of historical evidence, the exact causes and perpetrators of the forced migration is debated — it is only known for sure that the warfare killed somewhere between 1-2 million people.
Europeans first made contact in 1815, leading to the majority of the region to become Christianized. By 1885, the region was made into a British protectorate known as British Bechuanaland. The Tswana chiefs were granted limited power over the protectorate, but overall the region was controlled by the British. Many Batswana fought in World War I as apart of the African Auxiliary Pioneer Corps.
Gaining independence from the UK in 1966, Botswana has had a better experience with independence than other African countries. It's grown economically at a high rate. It is now a middle-income country, has little foreign debt at all, and has a lot of reserve foreign currency. This has been helped massively by the diamond industry. The country has been a democracy since independence, note has a good human rights record, and is considered the least corrupt country in Africa. Though, there are two rather big problems in recent years — the recent moving of the ǃKung (the ! is a clicking sound) people, deemed unconstitutional by the courts, and HIV/AIDS. Botswana has the third-highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world (only Lesotho and eSwatini are worse), with 1 in 3 Botswana having the virus and the average lifespan being 54 years, an improvement over the 35 years they previously had. There have been recent budget deficit problems.
As a former British colony, the primary language spoken in Botswana is English, though the languages of Setswana and Ikalanga are also spoken. The country also has unique demonym — plural Batswana, and singular Motswana. The country is primarily Christian, but indigenous African religions are still practiced. Despite being a pretty big country (roughly the size of France) it is very sparsely populated. Botswana's primary ethnic group is the Tswana, with the Kalanga and the San being the largest minority populations.
Interestingly, Botswana also has a growing metal scene, particularly in the capital. They look like something off a Motörhead album, particularly Ace Of Spades.
Botswana in fiction
- The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which was adapted for TV.
- The Gods Must Be Crazy.
- Usutu in Heroes is from Botswana and several characters visit him there.
- Cyrax from Mortal Kombat is from there - though this is only stated in the 2011 reboot.
- Bessie Head's Where Rain Clouds Gather.
- The professional wrestling gimmick Kamala has many Captain Ersatzes, one of which is Botswana Beast.
- Considering he was almost always billed from Uganda, you could certainly accuse promoters of not knowing geography.
- Not really fiction, but then-Vice President Ian Khama (later President from 2008 to 2018) appeared in Top Gear (UK)'s Africa Special, in which the presenters crossed Botswana's Makadikadi salt flats in old cars.
- The 2016 film A United Kingdom is a fictionalized version of Batswana prince Seretse Khama's marriage to a white British woman and the scandal that ensued.
- The survival comedy Are You Lost? has a brief flashback of one of Homare's survival adventures with her father in the Botswana wetlands, where she learns to treat horsefly bites with natural remedies.
- Botswana is mentioned in The Fairly OddParents! episode "Mind Over Magic" by Crocker, who intends to quiz his class on the name of its capital (Gaborone); Timmy gets it right using recently-wished-for mind-reading powers to read Crocker's mind.
The Batswana flag
The Batswana national anthem
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Miscellaneous
- Capital and largest city: Gaborone
- Population: 2,410,338
- Area: 581,730 sq km (224,610 sq mi) (47th)
- Government: Unitary dominant-party parliamentary constitutional republic
- Currency: Botswana pula (P) (BWP)
- ISO-3166-1 Code: BW
- Country calling code: 267
- Highest point: Otse Hill (1491 m/4,892 ft)
- Lowest point: Confluence of Limpopo River and Shashe River (513 m/1,683 ft)