The Kalahari Geography & Climate

The Kalahari is the 4.th biggest desert on Earth. She is covering, with more than 900.000 square kilometers (or 363.000 square miles), most of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South-Africa.

The Kalahari is at the southern part of Africa and she is a mixture of plateau and desert. Some animals and plants are exclusively living here, because there actually is some rainfall, usually between 10 and 20 cm annually. This allows these animals and plants to survive even in this harsh region of our planet. Actually, some parts of the Kalahari are more semi-desert than a classical desert. Especially the parts in South-Africa offer excellent grazing after good rains.

The temperatures in the summer are usually between 20 and 40 degrees Celsius. In winter, on cold days, the temperature on cold days can drop to an below-zero average.

Surrounding the Kalahari is the Kalahari Basin. This covers more than 2,5 mio. square kilometers and reaches even into Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The only permanent river, the Okavango, forms a Delta and the marshes in this Delta are amongst the most interesting regions of the Earth, concerning the Wildlife.

Nowadays, although it is still a hostile and rough environment, the Kalahari and the Kalahari Basin, are frequently visited by tourists. Safari-Tourism is one of the main income producers, next to diamonds and sand.