Makgadikgadi & Botswana's other salt pans

The Makgadikgadi Pans is a series of salt pans in the middle of the dry savanna of north-eastern Botswana - one of the largest salt flats in the world.

The pans are all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadikgadi, which once covered an area larger than Switzerland but dried up tens of thousands of years ago. At that time, the area consisted of lakes, rivers, marshes, woodlands, and grasslands fed by the Okavango River.

These salt pans, which cover an area of 16,060 km2 (1,600,000 hectares), include Sua Pan, Ntwetwe Pan, and Nxai Pan. They are salty deserts whose only plant life is a thin layer of blue-green algae. However, the fringes of the pans are salt marshes, grassland and shrubby savanna. The prominent baobab trees in the area function as local landmarks.

Much of this landscape is protected by a twin pair of national parks: the 3,900 km2 (390,000 hectares) Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and the 2,590 km2 (259,000 hectares) Nxai Pan National Park.

Longest mammal migration in Africa

The area attracts two zebra migrations during the rainy season, one of which is the longest mammal migration in Africa.

Every year, the summer rains transform the parched dustbowl into a lush paradise of nutritious grasses, attracting thousands of zebras and herds of wildebeest, oryx, and other antelope, much to the delight of predators.

Even once the zebra herds have left the salt pans, the area hosts resident herds of elephant, springbok, impala, giraffe, oryx, eland, and hartebeest. It also attracts leopards, lions, cheetahs, brown and spotted hyenas, and wild dogs (painted wolves).

The Boteti River runs along Makgadikgadi's western boundary, acting as the only permanent water source - even at the height of the dry season.

One of the region’s major attractions is the groups of habituated meerkats.