Botswana , [ c ] officially the Republic of Botswana , [ d ] is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert.
It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, Zambia to the north and Zimbabwe to the northeast. With a population of slightly over 2. It is essentially the nation-state of the Tswana people , who constitute nearly 80 percent of the population. The Tswana ethnic group are descended mainly from Bantu-speaking peoples who migrated into southern Africa , including modern Botswana, in several waves before AD In , the British colonised the area and declared a protectorate named Bechuanaland.
As part of the decolonisation of Africa , Bechuanaland became an independent Commonwealth republic under its current name on 30 September Since then, it has been a parliamentary republic with a consistent record of uninterrupted democratic elections , although the Botswana Democratic Party was the only ruling party from independence until As of [update] , Botswana is the third-least corrupt country in Africa, according to the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International.
The economy is dominated by mining and tourism. Botswana is the world's biggest diamond-producing country. Its relatively high gross national income per capita by some estimates the fourth-largest in Africa gives the country a relatively high standard of living and the second-highest Human Development Index of continental Sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa.
Despite this, Botswana continues to grapple with high unemployment rates. The country's name means "Land of the Tswana ", referring to the dominant ethnic group in Botswana. It is estimated that hominids lived in Botswana during the Pleistocene.
