Okavango Delta Facts and Figures

The entire Okavango Basin, from its catchment area to the Delta itself covers an area of 192,500km² - the size of Senegal, Syria or Uruguay.

From its mountainous source near Huambo in central Angola to the last trickling channel of the Thamalakane River some 1,900km away in Maun, Botswana, the river changes both its name and its character.

Rising as the Cubango in hilly, broken country aptly called terras do fim do mundo - the place at the end of the earth - the river tumbles southwards carving meandering loops and rapids. Forming the northern border of Namibia for a while, then joined by a similar sized river, the Cuito, it slices through Namibia's Caprivi Strip as the Okavango. The gentle gradient slows the river down and, after being hemmed in for 120km as a single winding channel (the Panhandle), the Okavango meets the flat Kalahari sands and fans out in a watery web of rivers, lagoons, backwaters and floodplains.

The Delta has two faces: the permanent swamps covering up to 3,000km² and the seasonally flooded areas. Rain that falls in central Angola during the summer months (December to March) makes its way south and by May the Delta begins to swell into anything up to 12,000 km2 of water-logged floodplains and glittering channels.

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