BOTSWANA, FLAG OF

national flag consisting of a light blue field (background) with central white-black-white stripes. Its width-to-length ratio is 2 to 3. The Tswana people of southern Africa were divided by political boundaries drawn by European settlers in the late 19th century. Some lived to the south of the new border in (British) Cape Colony and thus came under its jurisdiction, while those to the north formed a separate entity under British control, the Bechuanaland Protectorate. In 1910 the Union of South Africa was formed by Cape Colony, Natal, and the former Afrikaner republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. For many years the white-dominated government of South Africa agitated for the annexation of Bechuanaland and two other small territories, today the independent nations of Lesotho and Swaziland. Instead, Britain granted independence to Bechuanaland in 1966 as the Republic of Botswana. Bechuanaland had no distinctive national symbols of its own prior to independence. The national flag, adopted in 1966, symbolically contrasted with the flag of neighbouring South Africa, where the policies of apartheid (racial segregation and the subjugation of nonwhites) were in effect. Botswana proclaimed in the flag's central black stripe and its white bordering stripes a belief in racial cooperation and equality. The light blue background of the flag is associated with the sky and with water, a scarce and precious commodity in the vast Kalahari desert. The importance of water is also reflected in the motto that appears in the national coat of arms: it is a single word, Pula, connoting rain, hope, and confidence in the future. Whitney Smith History The history of Botswana is in general the history of the Kalahari area, intermediate between the more populated savanna of the north and east and the less populated steppe of the south and west. Although reduced to a peripheral role in southern Africa for most of the 20th century, at other times Botswana has been a central area of historical development. Early pastoral and farming peoples Khoisan-speaking hunters and herders People speaking Khoisan (Khoe and San) languages have lived in Botswana for many thousands of years. Depression Shelter in the Tsodilo Hills has evidence of continuous Khoisan occupation from about 17,000 BC to about AD 1650. During the final centuries of the last millennium before Christ, some of the Khoi (Tshu-khwe) people of northern Botswana converted to pastoralism, herding their cattle and sheep on the rich pastures revealed by the retreating lakes and wetlands. The economy Botswana has a free market economy with a strong tradition of central government planning to provide infrastructure for private investment. The economy has grown rapidly since the mid-1960s, with the per capita gross domestic product increasing from less than $50 to more than $1,000 by the mid-1980s. Less than a quarter of the adult work force is in formal paid employment. Relatively few rural households benefit from cattle sales: almost half of them have no cattle, and less than 10 percent own about half of the country's cattle (averaging 100 head each). Few households produce enough crops to cover even their own subsistence, let alone to sell on the market. Four out of five rural households survive on the income of a family member in town or abroad. That still leaves a significant number of rural households, usually female-headed, with no source of income known to statisticians. State revenues reaped from mining development have been spent on basic rural infrastructure and welfare services and on schemes to subsidize the development of cattle and crop production, which have in general benefited the richer rural households. Trade unionism, restricted by legislation, is as yet underdeveloped in Botswana. Resources Diamonds, the major economic resource of the country, have been exploited on a large scale since 1970. They are mined from some of the world's largest diamond pipes at Orapa and Letlhakane, south of the Makgadikgadi Pans, and at Jwaneng in the southeastern sandveld. Nickel and copper have been mined at Selebi and Phikwe near the Motloutse River since 1974. Coal is mined for power generation at Morupule near Palapye. Botswana's other major proven mineral resources are salt and soda ash, which was fully exploited at Sua on the eastern Makgadikgadi Pans from 1991. Surface water resources are limited to the wetlands and perennial rivers in the north and three major dam lakes at Gaborone, Shashe, and Mopipi (serving Orapa). Plans are under active consideration to canalize water through the Okavango wetlands toward Mopipi via a holding dam at Maun. Underground water is tapped in large quantities near Palapye and south of Gaborone. The land Relief and drainage Botswana extends from the Chobe River (which drains through the Zambezi to the Indian Ocean) in the north to the Molopo River (part of the Orange River system, which flows into the Atlantic) in the south. To the east it is bordered by the Limpopo River and its tributaries, the Ngotwane (Notwani), Marico (Madikwe), and Shashe. The country has a mean altitude of 3,300 feet and consists largely of a sand-filled basin, with gently undulating plains rising to highlands in neighbouring countries. The highest point is 4,888 feet (1,490 metres) in the hills north of Lobatse in southeastern Botswana; the lowest point is 2,170 feet at the country's easternmost point, in the Limpopo valley. The country is divided into three main environmental regions. The hardveld region consists of rocky hill ranges and areas of shallow sand cover in eastern Botswana. The sandveld region is the area of deep Kalahari sand covering the rest of the country. The third region consists of ancient lake beds superimposed on the northern sandveld in the lowest part of the Kalahari Basin. Geologic exploration has been limited by the depth and extent of Kalahari sand covering the surface geology. The rock groups underlying most of the sandveld are therefore the least-known but appear to be the youngest, belonging to the Karoo (Karroo) System, formed 290 to 208 million years ago. Elsewhere, Precambrian rock formations predominate. The surface geology of the eastern hardveld, exposed in its hill ranges, largely consists of basement complex rocks (more than 2.5 billion years old) intruding from the Transvaal and southern Zimbabwe. This complex is known to extend into younger rock formations (2.5 to 1.2 billion years old) in the extreme southern sandveld, while rocks of the Ghanzi and Damara groups (1.2 billion to 570 million years old) extend across the northwest corner of the country into northern Namibia. Drainage through the marshes of the Okavango delta is complex and imperfectly understood. The perennial Okavango River runs southward into its delta across the Caprivi Strip from the highlands of Angola. Most of its water evaporates from the 4,000 square miles of the delta wetlands. Floodwater reaches down through the eastern side of the marshes to the Boteti River, which flows sporadically to Lake Xau (Dow) and the Makgadikgadi Pans (also roughly 4,000 square miles in area). Less and less water has been flowing through the western side of the Okavango marshes during the 20th century, so that 70-square-mile Lake Ngamifamous a century agois today dry and almost unrecognizable as a lake. Meanwhile, the eastern Makgadikgadi Pans are annually flooded by the otherwise ephemeral Nata River from the Zimbabwe highlands, while the southern tributaries of the pans are now dry fossil valleys. The Molopo River and its Ramatlhabama tributary, on the southern border of Botswana with a course flowing into the Orange River, today rarely flood more than 50 miles from their sources. Most rivers in Botswana are ephemeral channels, usually not flowing above ground except in the summer rainy season. The two great exceptions to this rule are vigorous channels fed by the rains of central Africathe Okavango River above its delta and the Chobe River flowing through its marshes along the northern border to join the Zambezi above the Victoria Falls. Soils The soils of the eastern hardveld consist of moderately dry red loamy mokata soils on the plains, or mixed chalky and sandy chawana soils, with brownish rocky seloko soils on and around hills. Seloko soils are considered best for grain crops. The fertility of all soils is limited by the amount of rainfall, which is sometimes inadequate on the hardveld and regularly unable to support any cultivation on the sandveld. The alluvial soils of the ancient lake beds include gray loamy soils in the wetlands, gray-green saline soils on the pans, gray clayish soils to yellowish sandy soils around the wetlands, and very chalky light gray soils around the pans. There are also areas of gray to black cracking clay in former wet areas, such as those around Pandamatenga. The people Ethnic groups The dominant ethnic identity in Botswana is Tswana. The country's whole population is characterized as Batswana (singular, Motswana) whatever their ethnic origin. Though no attempt to count population by ethnic origin has been made since 1946, probably less than half the population is ethnic Tswana by origin. There are far greater numbers of ethnic Tswana in South Africa. Tswana ethnic dominance (Tswanadom) in Botswana can be dated to the eight Tswana states which ruled most of the area in the 19th century. Under British colonial rule, the populations of these states were given the official status of tribes, a term still used officially today. Within southeastern Botswana the other main ethnic identity besides Tswana, that of the Khalagari (Western Sotho), has become so incorporated as to be almost indistinguishable from the Tswana. Even their name is now usually rendered in the Tswana form as Kgalagadi. The Ngwato of east-central Botswana constitute the largest traditional tribal state but are probably less than one-fifth ethnic Tswana by origin. The major incorporated ethnic groups are Khalagari, Tswapong and Birwa (both Northern Sotho), and Kalanga (Western Shona). With larger numbers to the east in Zimbabwe, some Kalanga have resisted full incorporation. The Tawana state of northwestern Botswana can be seen as the least successful in incorporating other ethnic groups. Most of its population is Yei and Mbukushu by origin, related to riverine peoples in the Caprivi Strip, Angola, and Zambia to the north. Smaller numbers of Mbanderu and Herero have greater numbers of close relatives across the border in Namibia. The Subiya along the Chobe, closely related to people in the Caprivi Strip and Zambia, were excluded from the Tawana tribal reserve by the British. Small scattered groups of Khoisan people inhabit the southwestern districts of Botswana, as well as being incorporated with other ethnic groups. The Khoisan speak languages characterized as Khoe, or Khwe, and San. They include communities with their own headmen and livestock, as well as poorer groups employed by Tswana and white cattle farmers. White settlement in Botswana, consisting of some Afrikaners and fewer English settled in border farms, totaled fewer than 3,000 people in the colonial period. Religious groups Christianity, brought by missionaries from the south such as David Livingstone, was established as the official religion of the eight Tswana states by the end of the 19th century. Indigenous religious and medical practices, notably respect for patriarchal ancestors, either declined or were assimilated within popular Christian beliefs. Allegiance to the old state churches, notably those of the Congregationalists (London Missionary Society), has declined since the 1950s. The two most active and popular churches are the Zion Christian church (based in South Africa) among the working class and the Roman Catholic church among the middle class. There are also numerous other small Zionist and Apostolic churches in rural villages, as well as United Reformed (Congregational and Methodist), Dutch Reformed, and Anglican churches, and predominantly expatriate Muslim, Quaker, Hindu, and Baha'i congregations.