September 30 – Independence Day in Botswana

nPostednon September 30, 2014

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nCelebratenBotswana today. Did you know that, ever since its 1966 independencenfrom the United Kingdom, it has had uninterrupted democraticnelections?

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nCannI get a hooray??

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Kalahari Desert

nInnsome ways, Botswana doesn’t look so very great on paper. It’snlandlocked, which means that it has no direct access to an ocean ornsea. It’s mostly desert – the Kalahari, to be exact. It’s prettynflat. It’s sparsely populated. One of its borders is poorly defined,neven – usually a recipe for battles with neighbors. (In this case,nBotswana’s northern border with Zambia is only a few hundred meters -nless than a mile – long!)

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Butnin other ways, Botswana looks great on paper:

nIt has one of thenfastest-growing economies in the world and THE highest HumannDevelopment Index rating in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Also, there are somenareas in which there are diverse wildlife, including the world’snlargest concentration of African elephants.

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nDensenand sparse population n

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nSomennations are very small, land-wise, and although their populations arenalso small, the population is dense. In other words, a lot of peoplenare concentrated together in a small region. Two great examples ofnthis are Singapore and Hong Kong.

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nOtherncountries have cities in which there is this sort of dense populationn– but there are also huge tracts of land with no people, often nonroads, even. Those countries have what is called sparse populations –nbecause if you could spread all the people out evenly, across thenwhole country, the people would be few and far between.

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nSomengreat examples of sparsely populated nations are Canada, with itsnfrozen tundra and forested mountains, and Mongolia.

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nHerenare some numbers you can compare. These statistics tell us how manynpeople would be standing in each and every square mile of land, ifnyou spread the people out evenly:

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