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
Geography of Namibia Geography of Namibia At , Namibia is the world's thirty-fourth largest country (after Venezuela). After Mongolia, Namibia is the second least densely populated country in the world (). The Namibian landscape consists generally of five geographical areas, each with characteristic abiotic conditions and vegetation with some variation within and overlap between them: the Central Plateau, the Namib Desert, the Great Escarpment, the Bushveld, and the Kalahari Desert. The Central Plateau runs from north to south, bordered by the Skeleton Coast to the northwest, the Namib Desert and its coastal plains to the southwest, the Orange River to the south, and