Botswana's Geography

Botswana is located near the bottom of Africa and surrounded by Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Namibia, and South Africa. The climate is semi-arid. It is very hot and dry for most of the year but there is a rainy season, which runs through the summer months. Most of the rainfalls are unpredictable and followed by heavy sunshine so that most of the water doesn't have time to penetrate in the soil.

Summer days are hot, especially in the weeks that precede the coming of the cooling rains, and shade temperatures rise to the 38°C and higher, reaching a high 44°C on rare occasions. Winters are clear and dry, the air is warm during the daylight hours but, because there is no cloud cover, it is cold at night and in the early mornings.

Nearly all of the country is covered by some kind of savanna. In the southwest there is shrub savanna, while tree savanna (a mixture of trees and grass) is found in the rest of the country. There are small areas of forest, mainly in the far north along the Chobe River.