Botswana, once known as Bechuanaland, is a land-locked country in Southern Africa and is bordered in the North by Zambia, and going clockwise by Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Angola. The country became independent in 1966 and is closely ties economically to South Africa. Botswana is a stable democratic republic, where the President is both head of state and head of government. Its economy is mainly based upon mining (chiefly diamonds) cattle and tourism. Botswana occupies a little over 600,000 square kilometres, making it just smaller than the state of Texas. With a population of just over 1.6million it enjoys an annual per capita income of $11,400 – by African standards a wealthy country. Nearly 70% of the country in the Southwest is occupied by the Kalahari Desert, while in the far Northwest lies the Okavango Delta, the world's largest inland delta.

The Kalahari Desert is not a sand desert per se, but is covered with sparse vegetation consisting scrub and thorn bush, trees and grasslands, occasionally interrupted by sand dunes, valleys and pans. The pans top up with water during the rainy season and are extremely important to the country’s wildlife. Several important minerals are mined in the Kalahari including coal, copper, nickel and uranium. One of the world’s largesy diamond mines can be found here as well as asbestos.

The Okavango Delta was once part of Lake Makgadikgadi, an ancient lake that dried up some 10,000 years ago. The delta runs into the Okavango River, which has no outlet to the sea, and instead empties onto the sands of the Kalahari Desert. The delta floods every summer during the rainy season, and many of the islands are covered with water until the waters recede in winter. The Okavango Delta is home to a wealth of wildlife and attracts thousands of visitors a year. There are several camps within the delta region that cater to these visitors. Okavango game that can be seen include African elephants, Buffalo, Hippo, Lechwe, Topi, Blue Wildebeest, Giraffe, Nile crocodile, Lion, Cheetah, Leopard, hyenas, wild dogs, Kudu, Sable Antelope, Black and White Rhinoceros, the water monitor, zebras, Warthog and baboons. The delta also includes over 400 species of birds, including the Fish Eagle, the Crested Crane, and the Sacred Ibis.

The earliest modern inhabitants of the region were the Bushman (San) and the Hottentot (Khoe) peoples, who have lived an almost unchanged lifestyle in the country since the Middle Stone Ages. The physical characteristics of the Khoe and the San are similar. Both tend to have light, almost coppery skin colour, slanted, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, thin lips and tufted, tightly curled hair. Both speak click languages, though there are major differences. Both hunted and collected wild foods and neither grew crops. Approximately 60,000 years ago, the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa were of one tribe, probably a mixture of the two. It is believed that the Bantu-speaking people were an offshoot from the Khoe/San tribe. This occurred in the tropical rain forests of equatorial Africa about 10,000 years ago. The Bantu-speaking people gradually developed darker skin pigmentation and different physical attributes because of the different environments they eventually occupied.