The Okavango Basin is an endorheic basin in southwestern Africa, which extends across portions of Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

, Botswana

Botswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...

, Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

 and Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

. The basin covers an area of 721,000 square kilometers.

The Okavango River

Okavango River

The Okavango River is a river in southwest Africa. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, running southeastward for . It begins in Angola, where it is known as the Cubango River...

 is the chief stream in the basin. It is formed by the confluence of the Cubango and Cuito rivers, which originate on the Bihé Plateau of central Angola and flow southeast. The Cubango is joined just above its confluence with the Cuito by the Omatako River, which flows northeast from its origin in the Damaraland

Damaraland

Damaraland was a name given to the north-central part of what later became Namibia, inhabited by the Damaras. It was bounded roughly by Ovamboland in the north, the Namib Desert in the west, the Kalahari Desert in the east, and Windhoek in the south....

 region of central Namibia. The Okavango continues through the Caprivi Strip

Caprivi Strip

Caprivi, sometimes called the Caprivi Strip , Caprivi Panhandle or the Okavango Strip and formally known as Itenge, is a narrow protrusion of Namibia eastwards about , between Botswana to the south, Angola and Zambia to the north, and Okavango Region to the west. Caprivi is bordered by the...

 of Namibia into Botswana

Botswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...

, where it splits into a number of distributaries

Distributary

A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. They are a common feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation. The opposite of a distributary is a tributary...

 to form the Okavango Delta

Okavango Delta

The Okavango Delta , in Botswana, is the world's largest inland delta. It is formed where the Okavango River empties onto a swamp in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert, where most of the water is lost to evaporation and transpiration instead of draining into the sea...

, a large inland delta that becomes a seasonally flooded grassland.

A series of salt pans lie in the lowest points of the basin, including the Nwako Pan south of the Okavango Delta and the vast Makgadikgadi Pan

Makgadikgadi Pan

The Makgadikgadi Pan is a large salt pan in the middle of the dry savanna of northeastern Botswana. It is one of the largest salt flats in the world...

 southeast of the Delta. At times of high flow, the Okavango spills into the Nwako Pan via the Xudum and Nhabe distributaries to replenish Lake Ngami

Lake Ngami

Lake Ngami is an endorheic lake in Botswana north of the Kalahari Desert. It is seasonally filled by the Taughe River an affluent of the Okavango River system flowing out of the western side of the Okavango Delta. It is one of the fragmented remnants of the ancient Lake Makgadikgadi...

, a saline lake, and into Lake Xau and the western end of the Makgadikgadi Pan

Makgadikgadi Pan

The Makgadikgadi Pan is a large salt pan in the middle of the dry savanna of northeastern Botswana. It is one of the largest salt flats in the world...

 via the Boteti distributary. The Mopopi Dam was built on the Boteti to provide water to the Orapa diamond mine

Orapa diamond mine

The Orapa diamond mine is the world's largest diamond mine. The mine is located in Orapa, a town in the Boteti Sub-District of Botswana about west of the city of Francistown. Orapa is owned by Debswana, a partnership between the De Beers company and the government of Botswana...

.

The Selinda Spillway, also known as the Magweqana, is a distributary channel that flows eastward from the delta in periods of high water, connecting the Okavango to the Kwando River, a tributary of the Zambezi.

Other streams in the basin include the Eiseb, an intermittent stream that originates in Namibia's Herreroland and flows east into the Okavango Delta, and the Nata River

Nata River

The Nata River or Amanzanyama River is a natural watercourse in Southern Africa. Within the country of Botswana the Nata River is a source of water to the ephemeral wetlands of the Makgadikgadi Pans, where a number of species of limited distribution thrive...

, which originates in western Zimbabwe to flow into the eastern end of the Makgadikgadi Pan.