Chobe National Park was established in 1967 and covers a huge area of 21 000 square kilometres (8000 square miles). It is located in Botswana’s extreme northeast, where the Chobe River forms the Botswana-Zimbabwe-Namibia-Zambia boundary. Kasane, in the north-eastern portion, is the closest settlement and serves as a border station with Zimbabwe. Chobe is only a 90-minute drive from Victoria Falls, making it simple to combine these two world-class locations into one vacation. Chobe National Park and the Moremi Game Reserve have an open border in the south, allowing big migratory species to migrate instinctively, seasonally, and freely between the two protected regions.

Healthy Eco-System

Botswana’s government has developed a number of sophisticated tourist regulations to guarantee that the country’s tourism is of high quality and low volume. This keeps the masses at distance to protect Botswana’s unique ecosystem and guarantees the country’s status as one of the world’s most beautiful wildlife havens. Chobe National Park is the oldest and most diversified national park in Botswana. It preserves four distinct and magnificent habitats, including the Linyanti swamps and the Savuti marsh, as well as providing open migratory pathways to the Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta and the Hwange Game Reserve in Zimbabwe.

Moremi Game Reserve

Botswana’s Moremi Game Reserve is a protected region. It was named after Chief Moremi of the BaTawana tribe and is located on the eastern edge of the Okavango Delta. When Moremi was established, it was classified as a game reserve rather than a national park. The BaSarwa or Bushmen who resided there were allowed to remain in the reserve as a result of this classification. There are densely forested regions where the Cape wild dog (Lycaon pictus pictus) and leopard can be found. Chobe National Park, which borders the Moremi Game Reserve, is located to the northeast. Only approximately 30% of the reserve is on the mainland, with the majority of it being within the Okavango Delta.

It is home to nearly 500 species of birds (from water birds to forest dwellers) as well as a diverse range of other wildlife, including the lion, leopard, African bush elephant, African buffalo, black rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giraffe, plains zebra, blue wildebeest, cheetah, spotted hyena, black-backed jackal, common warthog, impala, and lechwe.

The Interesting River

The Chobe River is so generously life-giving to the otherwise semi-arid Botswana, that it is no wonder that the country has given this watercourse within its borders its own identity. However, the Chobe is, in fact, a stretch of a major southern African river system that flows into the Zambezi River, over the Victoria Falls and eventually to sea. However, long before that happens, the Cuando River rises from rainfall and tributaries in the Angolan highlands. When it crosses the Namibian border and traverses its Caprivi region, it is known as the Kwando River. In Botswana, the river is first called the Linyanti, and it almost subsides into the Kalahari sands like the Okavango, creating the channels and islands of the Linyanti Swamps. Instead, the Chobe River diverts to the east, providing a spectacular game-viewing river frontage before leaving the country and joining the Zambezi.