Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70% of its territory being a part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, Zambia to the north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. Its total area is . Gaborone, in the South-East District, is the country's capital and largest city.
Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. While it is not enshrined by statutory law, Botswana is de facto the nation state of the Batswana people, who constitute nearly 80% of the population while legally undistinguished Kalanga people, who account for another 11%, are the single largest ethnic minority.
The Batswana ethnic group are descended mainly from Bantu-speaking peoples who migrated into southern Africa, including modern Botswana, in several waves before AD 600. In 1885, the British colonised the area and declared a protectorate named Bechuanaland. As part of the decolonisation of Africa, Bechuanaland became an independent Commonwealth republic under its current name on 30 September 1966. Since then, it has been a parliamentary republic with a consistent record of uninterrupted democratic elections, though dominated by the Botswana Democratic Party until 2024, when the Umbrella for Democratic Change won the 2024 Botswana general election.
Botswana's economy has generally experienced stable growth since independence. It is dominated by tourism and mining; Botswana produces more diamonds than any other country except Russia. Its gross national income per capita (purchasing power parity) of about $20,158 (by some estimates the fourth-largest in Africa) gives the country a relatively high standard of living and the second-highest Human Development Index of continental sub-Saharan Africa, after South Africa. Despite Botswana’s economic gains, Botswana continues to grapple with high unemployment, severe income inequality, and one of the world's most critical HIV/AIDS epidemics. Botswana is a member of the Southern African Customs Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations.
Etymology The country's name means "Land of the Tswana", referring to the dominant ethnic group in Botswana. The Constitution of Botswana recognises a homogeneous Tswana state. The demonym Batswana was originally applied to the Tswana, and has also come to be used generally as a term for all citizens of Botswana. In Setswana, Batswana is grammatically plural; its singular form, which can refer to a single member of the Tswana or to a single citizen of Botswana, is Motswana.
History Present-day Botswana was primarily forest ten million years ago. Homo erectus lived in the region during the Early Stone Age. Stone tools in present-day Botswana date back to two million years ago. Hominin migration to the Kalahari Desert, which includes Botswana, is estimated to have happened prior to 186,000 years ago. Lake Makgadikgadi began to shrink approximately 50,000 years ago. Roughly 30,000–40,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Khoe and the San lived in the region, adapting their movements to changing water and climate conditions. Rock art dates back to approximately 30,000 years ago, and permanent water sources were widely inhabited by 20,000 years ago.
Around 2,000 years ago, people introduced cattle, sheep, pottery, and agriculture. Crops included millet, sorghum, cowpeas, and more. Bantu-speaking peoples migrated into the region between 2,000 and 1,500 years ago; the Kalanga arrived around 200 CE and ancestors of the Tswana who introduced iron and copper tools along with establishing permanent settlements. From the 7th century, trade expanded, connecting Botswana with wider southern Africa and eventually the Indian Ocean trade. The Toutswe people, the Kingdom of Mapungubwe, and later Great Zimbabwe became important regional powers, with cattle and gold playing major economic roles.
From the 15th to 18th centuries, Tswana and Kalanga peoples migrated and formed new political communities. Tswana society became organized into merafe (plural form of morafe), a type of tribal government ruled by chiefs known as dikgosi (plural form of kgosi), while cattle became a major asset to the region.
The Difaqane of the late 18th and early 19th century caused widespread warfare and migration, which strengthened Tswana settlement across present-day Botswana. By the 1840s, many states had been re-established and governed through the kgotla, a traditional community council.
European influence expanded after missionaries arrived in 1816, followed by British traders and explorers. David Livingstone established a mission in 1845, while Christianity and European trade spread. Conflict with Boer forces continued, and the discovery of the Tati Goldfields in 1868 led to a gold rush and the growth of Francistown as a major mining and railway centre.
In 1852, a coalition of Tswana chiefdoms led by Sechele I defeated Afrikaner incursions at the Battle of Dimawe and, after about eight years of intermittent tensions and hostilities, eventually came to a peace agreement in Potchefstroom in 1860. In 1884, Batawana, a northern-based Tswana clan's cavalry under the command of kgosi Moremi II, fought and defeated the Ndebele's invasion of northern Botswana at the Battle of Khutiyabasadi. This was the start of the collapse of the Ndebele kingdom in Zimbabwe, helping Tswana speaking authority.
Bechuanaland Protectorate
In 1885, Britain established the Bechuanaland Protectorate to prevent German and Afrikaner expansion while maintaining a strategic link between southern and central Africa. Tswana dikgosi supported British protection since they feared settler colonialism by Germany along with incorporation into South Africa and the mining magnate Cecil Rhodes. The protectorate was divided into tribal reserves and British crown land, with eight Tswana groups being recognized. The dikgosi still had considerable authority, while Britain exercised relatively limited direct control, believing the protectorate would be absorbed by a British colony. The territory was economically dependent on South Africa.
In 1895, Khama III, Sebele I, and Bathoen I travelled to Britain and successfully persuaded the British government not to transfer the protectorate to Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company. This mission became an important early example of Tswana political unity.
The protectorate suffered heavily from the rinderpest epidemic of the 1890s, losing livestock and wild game. Britain introduced hut and poll taxes, and the protectorate joined the South African Customs Union in 1910. At this point, all Tswana tribes had adopted Christianity.
During the First World War, hundreds of Batswana served with British forces. British involvement increased during the 1930s, as the administration sought to develop the cattle economy while imposing greater controls on the dikgosi. A severe drought earlier in the decade had killed much of the protectorate's cattle. Bechuanaland sent roughly 11,000 men to serve alongside British forces during the Second World War, with most serving in the British Army's African Auxiliary Pioneer Corps. The war brought shortages, higher prices, taxation, and economic disruption throughout the protectorate; however, relative to other nations in the British Empire, the people of Bechuanaland approved of the war. Following the war; education, wage labour, and civic organizations contributed to the emergence of a new political class that increasingly challenged traditional chiefly authority.
The most important political crisis came from Seretse Khama, heir to the Ngwato chieftainship, whose marriage to the British white woman Ruth Williams caused controversy. In 1950, Britain banished the couple from the protectorate under pressure from South Africa and racial politics surrounding apartheid. Seretse's supporters protested, and he was eventually allowed to return in 1956. The controversy weakened the authority of the chiefs and strengthened the movement toward representative government. Political parties emerged, including the Bechuanaland People's Party in 1960 and Seretse Khama's Bechuanaland Democratic Party (BDP) in 1962. A new system reduced the political power of chiefs while preserving them in a Ntlo ya Dikgosi (House of Chiefs). Gaborone became the capital in 1965, and the protectorate gained self-government. The BDP won the first general election, and on 30 September 1966, the Bechuanaland Protectorate became the independent Republic of Botswana, with Seretse Khama as its first president.
Independence–present
Botswana gained independence in 1966 and established a liberal democracy based on elections, human rights, and a Westminster system with Seretse Khama as its first president. Traditional chiefs and institutions such as the kgotla were retained but placed under the national legal system. Botswana was extremely poor at independence, with low literacy, little infrastructure, and an economy heavily dependent on cattle farming and South Africa.
Under Seretse Khama, the government invested in roads, schools, and other public services. The discovery of diamonds in 1967 transformed the economy. Partnerships with De Beers and the creation of Debswana allowed the government to gain substantial diamond revenue, helping Botswana become one of Africa's fastest-growing economies.
After Seretse Khama's death in 1980, then Vice-President of Botswana Quett Masire became the president of Botswana. Quett Masire continued Khama's development policies, preserving faith in the government. Strong opposition of the Botswana Democratic Party started gaining traction in the 1980s, with many opposition parties winning local elections. Previously dependent on support by specific ethnic groups, the Botswana National Front gained support among the working class. By the 1984 general election, it was a competitive opposition party. HIV/AIDS had caused the life expectancy to drop from 67 to 50 years in one decade.
Festus Mogae became president in 1998 when Quett Masire stepped down as President. Mogae continued economic development and made HIV/AIDS treatment a major priority. The Botswana–Namibia border came under dispute in 1999 when both countries claimed the Sedudu Island. The dispute went to the International Court of Justice, where it was ruled that the island belonged to Botswana. The San people issued a legal challenge in 2002 to contest their expulsion from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, but the case was dismissed.
Ian Khama, the son of Seretse Khama succeeded to the presidency at the end of Mogae's term on 1 April 2008. His style of leadership was advertised as following the "four Ds": democracy, development, dignity, and discipline. Khama centralised power around the presidency. The 2008 financial crisis pressured Botswana's economy, which remained dependent on diamond mines despite the government's efforts. The diamond industry ended a steady decline when it stabilised at about 39% of the nation's GDP in 2009. The BDP retained its majority in the legislature after the 2014 general election, but for the first time it did so with only a plurality of the popular vote. Ian Khama then appointed Masisi as his vice-president. The decision was controversial because of Masisi's inexperience relative to other possible choices.