Kalahari Desert Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, parts of Namibia and regions of South Africa. "Kalahari" is derived from the Tswana word "Kgala", meaning "the great thirst", or "Kgalagadi", meaning "a waterless place"; the Kalahari has vast areas covered by red sand without any permanent surface water. Drainage of the desert is by dry valleys, seasonally inundated pans and the large salt pans of the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana and Etosha Pan in Namibia. The only permanent river, the Okavango, flows into a delta in the
Libyan Desert Algeria. The sand seas contain dunes up to 512 meters in height, and cover approximately one quarter of the total desert region. Other features are the Aswad al Haruj (the "Black Desert"), a large circular region of black volcanic shield in the centre of the country, and the Hamada al Hamra (the "Red Desert") a rocky plateau to the west, on the Tunisian border, coloured by iron oxide deposits. To the southeast, between Kufra and the Libya-Egypt-Sudan border, lies the Jebel Arkenu, with the associated Arkenu structures, thought to be caused by meteorite strikes. North of the Gilf Kebir plateau,