Okavango Delta

The Okavango Delta is a large inland delta in Botswana where the Okavango River empties into a tectonic basin instead of a sea, one of relatively few interior deltas in the world with no outlet to open water. It receives about 11 cubic kilometers of water a year, spreading across an area that ranges from roughly 6,000 to 15,000 square kilometers depending on the season before nearly all of it is lost to evaporation and plant uptake rather than draining onward. UNESCO inscribed the delta as its 1,000th World Heritage Site in 2014, and it has also been named one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa, prized for its largely intact wetland ecosystem in an otherwise arid region.