Botswana

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Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. While it is not enshrined by statutory law, Botswana is de facto the nation state of the Batswana people, who constitute nearly 80% of the population while legally undistinguished Kalanga people, who account for another 11%, are the single largest ethnic minority.

The Batswana ethnic group are descended mainly from Bantu-speaking peoples who migrated into southern Africa, including modern Botswana, in several waves before AD 600. In 1885, the British colonised the area and declared a protectorate named Bechuanaland.

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Etymology

The country's name means "Land of the Tswana", referring to the dominant ethnic group in Botswana. The Constitution of Botswana recognises a homogeneous Tswana state. The demonym Batswana was originally applied to the Tswana, and has also come to be used generally as a term for all citizens of Botswana. In Setswana, Batswana is grammatically plural; its singular form, which can refer to a single member of the Tswana or to a single citizen of Botswana, is Motswana.

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History

Present-day Botswana was primarily forest ten million years ago. Homo erectus lived in the region during the Early Stone Age. Stone tools in present-day Botswana date back to two million years ago. Hominin migration to the Kalahari Desert, which includes Botswana, is estimated to have happened prior to 186,000 years ago. Lake Makgadikgadi began to shrink approximately 50,000 years ago. Roughly 30,000–40,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Khoe and the San lived in the region, adapting their movements to changing water and climate conditions. Rock art dates back to approximately 30,000 years ago, and permanent water sources were widely inhabited by 20,000 years ago.

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Geography

Botswana's geography features a predominantly flat and dry landscape, with much of the country covered by the Kalahari Desert. The country's terrain consists of sandy soils, rocky hill ranges, grasslands, and more. Much of Botswana's population is concentrated in the southeastern part of the country, where major urban centres are located.

Botswana is a landlocked country in southern Africa, bordered by Namibia to the west and north, Zambia to the north, Zimbabwe to the northeast, and South Africa to the south and southeast.

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Government and politics

Botswana is a parliamentary republic governed by the Constitution of Botswana. It is the longest uninterrupted democracy in Africa. Its seat of government is in Gaborone. Botswana's governing institutions were established after it became an independent nation in 1966. Botswana's governmental structure is based on both the United Kingdom's Westminster system and the Tswana people's tribal governments. Botswana has a centralised government in which national law supersedes local law. Local laws are developed by local councils and district councils. They are heavily influenced by tribal governments, which are led by the tribe's chief.

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Economy

Since independence, Botswana has had one of the fastest growth rates in per capita income in the world. Formerly one of the world's poorest countries—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—Botswana has transformed itself into an upper middle-income country. GDP per capita grew from $439 in 1950 to $15,842 in 2018. Although Botswana was resource-abundant, a good institutional framework allowed the country to reinvest resource-income to generate stable future income.

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Demographics

As of 2024, the Tswana are the majority ethnic group in Botswana, making up approximately 79% of the population, followed by Kalanga at 11% and the San (Basarwa) at 3%. The remaining 7% consists of White Batswana/European Batswana, Indians, and a number of other smaller Southern African ethnic groups.

Native groups include the Bayei, Bambukushu, Basubia, Baherero and Bakgalagadi. The Indian minority is made up of both recent migrants and descendants of Indian migrants who arrived from Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius and South Africa.

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Culture

Botswana's music is mostly vocal and performed, sometimes without drums depending on the occasion; it also makes heavy use of string instruments. Botswana folk music has instruments such as setinkane (a sort of miniature piano), segankure/segaba (a Motswana version of the Chinese instrument erhu), moropa (meropa for plural) and phala (a whistle used mostly during celebrations). The hands are sometimes used as musical instruments too, by either clapping them together or against phathisi (goat skin turned inside out wrapped around the calf area, only used by men) to create music and rhythm.

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Education

Botswana has made educational progress since independence in 1966 when there were only 22 university graduates in the country and only a very small percentage of the population attended secondary school. Botswana increased its adult literacy rate from 69% in 1991 to 83% in 2008. Among sub-Saharan African countries, Botswana has one of the highest literacy rates. As of 2024, 88.5% of the population aged 15 and over could read and write and were respectively literate.

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