The Okavango Delta in north-western Botswana is one of the very few large inland deltas in the world: its waters never reach the sea. It is made up of permanent marshes and plains that flood each year.
Its most remarkable feature is timing. The flood arrives during the dry season, carried by the River Okavango from rains that fell months earlier in the highlands of Angola, so plants and animals have adapted their life cycles to it. The delta shelters some of the world’s most threatened large mammals, including the cheetah, white and black rhinoceros, African wild dog and lion.
In June 2014 it became the 1,000th site inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.