Botswana: Facts in Brief 2

Botswana: Facts in Brief

Main industries: mining for minerals, especially diamonds. Botswana is the largest exporter of diamonds in the world.

Raw diamonds.

This is what diamonds look like when they have been mined from the ground.

They are sold this way, and jewellers cut and polish them to make jewellery.

They way they are cut makes them sparkle.

Other minerals mined in Botswana include copper, nickel, salt, soda ash, potash, coal, iron ore and silver.

Botswana is also a large exporter of beef to Europe.

Tourism is becoming a major industry in Botswana, because of its conservation activity and large wilderness areas, including the famous Okavango Swamps and the Kalahari desert.

Geography and Climate: Botswana is a flat country, with some hilly areas in the east. The climate is classified as semi-arid: the western part of Botswana gets less than 250mm a year. The northern part gets more rain, more than 600mm a year. Temperatures range from freezing in winter (June and July) to 40ºC or more in summer, especially in October and November).

In the north and west, because of the high rainfall, there are the Okavango Delta, Chobe and Lenyanti Rivers. There is a lot of wildlife in these areas. In the western part of the country there is shrub savanna (grasslands). The Kalahari Desert covers much of the south and southwest.

Shrub savanna

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