Nxai Pan is a large salt pan topographic depression which is part of the larger Makgadikgadi Pans in northeastern

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

. It lies on the old Pandamatenga Trail, which until the 1960s was used for overland cattle drives. The area is speckled with umbrella acacias and is said to resemble the

Serengeti The Serengeti ( ) ecosystem is a geographical region in Africa, spanning the Mara and Arusha Regions of Tanzania. The protected area within the region includes approximately of land, including the Serengeti National Park and several game r ...

in Tanzania. The Nxai Pan was added to the National Park System to augment the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, thus providing an enlarged contiguous area of natural protection. The 'x' represents a palatal click sound. Click sounds are typical of the

Khoisan Khoisan ( ) or () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for the various Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen and the San people, Sān peo ...

languages and some southern Bantu languages.

Wildlife

This

landform A landform is a land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. They may be natural or may be anthropogenic (caused or influenced by human activity). Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement ...

is a major part of the Nxai Pan National Park, and is a seasonal home to large herds of

zebra Zebras (, ) (subgenus ''Hippotigris'') are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: Grévy's zebra (''Equus grevyi''), the plains zebra (''E. quagga''), and the mountain zebra (''E. ...

and wildebeest. In the rainy season between December and April the pan becomes grassy and attracts these animals in their tens of thousands, along with smaller numbers of gemsbok, eland and

red hartebeest The red hartebeest (''Alcelaphus buselaphus caama''), also called the Cape hartebeest or Caama, is a subspecies of the hartebeest found in Southern Africa. More than 130,000 individuals live in the wild. The red hartebeest is closely related to ...

References

* Willie Olivier and Sandra Olivier (1998) ''Overland Through Southern Africa'', Published by Struik, 176 pages , * C.Michael Hogan (2008) ''Makgadikgadi'', The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnha

Notes

{{coord, -19.90, 24.75, dim:30000_region:BW, display=title Makgadikgadi Pan Salt flats of Botswana

Wildlife

See also

References

Notes