Kgalagadi Transfrontier

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is Africa's first transfrontier park. It is made up of two adjoining national parks: Kalahari Gemsbok, proclaimed in South Africa on 31 July 1931, and Botswana's Gemsbok National Park. Roughly three quarters of its 38,000 km² lie in Botswanan territory and one quarter in South African. Kgalagadi means "place of thirst".

The basis of how it works today is a verbal agreement reached in 1948, under which no barrier was ever raised along the international border that separates the two parks. Joint management plans were proposed in 1989 but could not be put into effect until South Africa moved to a democratic system; the bilateral treaty was signed on 7 April 1999 and the presidents of both countries officially opened the park on 12 May 2000. It is the only transfrontier park on the continent that is genuinely open in the full sense: visitors can cross the border freely within its boundaries, and wildlife follows its ancestral migration routes unimpeded, something essential to survival in so harsh an environment.

The landscape is one of red dunes fixed by vegetation and of the dry beds of the Nossob and Auob rivers, which flow only exceptionally but whose aquifers sustain acacias and waterholes. It is a very large ecosystem and relatively free of human interference, something increasingly rare in Africa. Its wildlife includes the gemsbok, the park's symbol, the black-maned Kalahari lions, cheetah, leopard and large concentrations of raptors. It is also the heritage territory of the ‡Khomani San, former hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari: in May 2002 the ‡Khomani San and Mier communities reached the !Ae!Hai Kalahari Heritage Park agreement with the South African government and SANParks, which returned ownership of a broad expanse of land inside the park to those communities.