Zambia

Zambia is an inland country of plateaux covered by miombo woodland and crossed by three great river basins: those of the Zambezi, the Kafue and the Luangwa. The Luangwa valley, a branch of the Rift, concentrates an extraordinary density of wildlife around meanders and oxbow lagoons, and it was there in the 1950s that walking safaris were born, now practised across the whole of Africa. To the west, the Busanga plains, inside the immense Kafue park, flood every year and draw herds of antelope and their predators. To the north, the Bangweulu swamps form an enormous wetland where the black lechwe lives, an aquatic antelope exclusive to that area, alongside shoebills. The Victoria Falls, shared with Zimbabwe, mark the Zambezi's plunge into its lower course.