The Cuvelai-Etosha Basin is a transboundary wetland area shared by

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

and

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

extending over 450 kilometres from north to south. Covering almost 160,000 km², the widest point of the basin is along the Angola-Namibia border from the

Kunene River The Cunene (Portuguese spelling) or Kunene (common Namibian spelling) is a river in Southern Africa. It flows from the Angola highlands southwards to the border with Namibia. It then flows in a westerly direction along the border until it reaches ...

east to the

Okavango River The Okavango River (formerly spelt Okovango or Okovanggo), is a river in southwest Africa. It is known by this name in Botswana, and as Cubango in Angola, and Kavango in Namibia. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, runni ...

. The basin consists of hundreds of drainage channels, known as ''iishana'' (singular ''oshana''), that flow from north to south from the southern Angolan highlands to Namibia's

Etosha pan The Etosha Pan is a large endorheic salt pan, forming part of the Cuvelai-Etosha Basin in the north of Namibia. It is a vast hollow in the ground in which water may collect or in which a deposit of salt remains after water has evaporated. The 1 ...

. Many of these channels are dry for most of the year but are prone to major flooding during the rainy season due to the terrain being extremely flat. Most of the basin lies between 1,100 and 1,200 metres above sea level with little change in altitude. Located in the north-central part of Namibia, this

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

stretches across four regions, namely Ohangwena, Omusati, Oshana and Oshikoto. The basin is further divided into four sub-basins, namely Olushandja, Lishana, Nipele and Tsumeb.

People

There is an estimated 1.2 million people that live in the basin with about 70% in Namibia and 30% in Angola. In Namibia, the basin covers around 5% of the country, yet about 40% of Namibia's population lives here with around 850,000 people. The basin is traditionally dominated by the Owambo people and so is often referred to as the Owambo Basin by geologists.

References

{{reflist, 1 Sedimentary basins of Africa Geology of Angola Geology of Namibia