Chobe National Park, situated at the Northwest of Botswana, is one of the largest games concentration in all the Africa continent and one of the world's last remaining sizeable wilderness area. By size, this is the third largest park of the country, after the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Gemsbok National Park, but definitively the most diverse and spectacular. This is also the country's first national park.
The Kruger National Park is the largest game reserve in South Africa. It is roughly the same size as Wales. It covers 18,989 square km (7,332 sq mi) and extends 350 km (217 mi) from north to south and 60 km (37 mi) from east to west.
To the west and south of the Kruger National Park are the two South African provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo. In the north is Zimbabwe, and to the east is Mozambique. It is now part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, a peace park that links Kruger National Park with the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, and with the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.
The Serengeti is a 60,000 square kilometer savanna which lies over Tanzania and Kenya. The biannual migration that occurs there is considered one of the seven tourist travel wonders of the world. The region contains several national parks and game reserves. Its name is derived from the Maasai language and means "Endless Plains".
The Serengeti has more than 2 million herbivores and thousands of predators. Blue Wildebeests, gazelles, zebras and buffalos are the animals most commonly found in the region.
The Serengeti hosts the largest and longest overland migration in the world, a biannual occurrence. Around October, nearly 2 million herbivores travel from the northern hills toward the southern plains, crossing the Mara River, in pursuit of the rains. In April, they then return to the north through the west, once again crossing the Mara river. This phenomenon is sometimes called the Circular Migration. Over 250,000 wildebeest alone will die along the journey from Tanzania to Maasai Mara reserves in upper Kenya, a total of 500 miles. Death is often caused by injury, exhaustion, or predation.
The Etosha Pan is a large endorheic salt pan, forming part of the Kalahari Basin in the north of Namibia. The 120-kilometre-long (75-mile-long) dry lakebed and its surroundings are protected as Etosha National Park, one of Namibia's largest wildlife parks. Herds of elephants occupy the dense mopane woodland on the south side of the lake. Mopane trees are common throughout south-central Africa, and host the mopane worm, which is the larval form of the moth Gonimbrasia belina and an important source of protein for rural communities. It was first explored by the Europeans John Andersson and Francis Galton in 1851. American commercial traveller McKeirnan visited the area in 1876.
The Okavango Delta (or Okavango Swamp), in Botswana, is the world's largest inland delta.
“ "Where all this water goes is a mystery", Aurel Schultz, 1897 ”
The area was once part of Lake Makgadikgadi, an ancient lake that dried up some 10,000 years ago. Today, the Okavango River has no outlet to the sea. Instead, it empties onto the sands of the Kalahari Desert, irrigating 15,000 km˛ of the desert. Each year some 11 cubic kilometres of water reach the delta. Some of this water reaches further south to create Lake Ngami. |
