Okavango Delta

The Okavango Delta is one of the very few large inland deltas in the world: the Okavango river, which rises in Angola and crosses Namibia, never reaches the sea but fans out across the sands of the Kalahari, in north-western Botswana, where it evaporates and soaks away. The result is a shifting mosaic of permanent swamp, lagoons, channels, seasonal floodplains and a temporary freshwater lake, with a flooded area that varies enormously from one year to the next.

Its most singular feature is a mismatch of timing: the annual flood reaches the delta during Botswana's dry season, in June and July, because the water takes months to travel down the basin from the Angolan rains. Plants and animals have synchronised their biological cycles to that inverted pulse, which makes the place an exceptional example of interaction between climatic, geomorphological, hydrological and biological processes. The water, permanently clear and rich in nutrients, turns an arid desert into a landscape of exceptional beauty.

More than 1,060 plant species have been recorded, mostly sedges, grasses and aquatic plants, with trees confined to the higher ground that is left as islands during the flood. The fauna includes 32 species of large mammal and more than 650 of bird, with populations of some of the most threatened species on the planet: cheetah, white and black rhinoceros, African wild dog and lion. The sitatunga, an antelope with elongated hooves adapted to the mud, is the delta's specialist par excellence. It was designated a Wetland of International Importance (Ramsar) on 12 September 1996 and inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2014, at the Committee's 38th session, under criteria (vii), (ix) and (x); it was the 1,000th property on the List.