Kalahari Desert activities within the reserve. Botswana Namibia South Africa 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,
Kalahari Desert Kalahari, except on salt pans during the dry season, the vegetation cover can be clearly denser, up to almost 100% in some limited areas. In an area of about 600,000 km in the south and west of the Kalahari, the vegetation is mainly xeric savanna. This area is the ecoregion identified by World Wide Fund for Nature as Kalahari xeric savanna AT1309. Typical savanna grasses include ("Schmidtia", "Stipagrostis", "Aristida", and "Eragrostis") interspersed with trees such as camelthorn ("Acacia erioloba"), grey camelthorn ("Acacia haematoxylon"), shepherd’s tree ("Boscia albitrunca"), blackthorn ("Acacia mellifera"), and silver cluster-leaf ("Terminalia sericea"). In certain areas where the