Okavango Delta
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How it came to be
The Okavango Delta forms where the Okavango River, carrying summer rain from the Angolan highlands, spreads out across Botswana. About 11 cubic kilometres of water flood 6,000 to 15,000 square kilometres each year, and the flood peaks in June and July, during Botswana's dry winter.
Small numbers of indigenous people have lived in the delta for centuries; five groups live here, among them the Hambukushu, the Wayeyi and the Bugakhwe Bushmen. The Batawana, a Tswana nation, have held political control since the late 18th century and took control of the whole delta in the 1850s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s more than 4,000 Hambukushu refugees from Angola were settled around Etsha.
In 1963, while Elizabeth Pulane Moremi, widow of Chief Moremi III, ruled the area, the eastern delta was proclaimed the Moremi Game Reserve. The reserve now covers about 40 percent of the property, and the rest is made up of 18 wildlife management and controlled hunting areas. On 22 June 2014 the delta became the 1,000th site inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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