Kalahari democracy that mines more diamonds than almost anyone
Botswana is a flat, landlocked country in Southern Africa, about 70 per cent of it Kalahari Desert, spread over 581,730 square kilometres around its capital Gaborone. Only Russia mines more diamonds, and since independence in 1966 the country has held elections without a break.
It is among the most thinly populated nations on Earth. The Batswana form nearly 80 per cent of the population and the Kalanga, the largest minority, about 11 per cent; the name Botswana itself means land of the Tswana, and one citizen is a Motswana. Stone tools here go back two million years, and the ancestors of the Khoe and San lived in the region 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, following shifting water as ancient Lake Makgadikgadi dried out.
Bantu-speaking farmers arrived in waves, the Kalanga around 200 CE and Tswana ancestors around 400 CE, bringing iron and copper tools. Tswana society came to be ruled through merafe led by chiefs called dikgosi, and communities debated in the kgotla council. In 1852 Sechele I's coalition beat back Afrikaner raiders at Dimawe, and in 1884 Moremi II's cavalry turned back an Ndebele invasion. Britain declared the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1885, partly to block German and Afrikaner expansion.
In 1895 three chiefs, Khama III, Sebele I and Bathoen I, sailed to Britain and persuaded the government not to hand the protectorate to Cecil Rhodes's company. Around 11,000 men from Bechuanaland served with British forces in the Second World War. In 1950 Britain exiled Seretse Khama, heir to the Ngwato chieftaincy, over his marriage to the Englishwoman Ruth Williams, bowing to apartheid South Africa; he returned in 1956 and became the first president at independence.
The new state was desperately poor, but diamonds were found in 1967, and partnership with De Beers through Debswana poured revenue into roads and schools. Income per head reached about $20,158 at purchasing power parity by 2024, giving the second-highest Human Development Index on the sub-Saharan mainland, though unemployment and inequality remain severe. In 2024 the Umbrella for Democratic Change ended 58 years of Botswana Democratic Party rule, and Duma Boko became president.
Source: Botswana
