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01/12/2005: Obscure Country of the Week II: Botswana
Last week's Obscure Country of the Week was Bhutan. This week's Obscure Country is Botswana.
Botswana, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, is Africa's oldest multiparty democracy, having gained independence from Britain in 1966. It is a sparsely populated country, with only 1.6 million inhabitants, since much of the land is taken up by the Kalahari Desert.
The capital of Botswana is Gaberone. The primary languages are English and Setswana.
Botswana is home to three of the world's richest diamond mines, and diamond mining accounts for a third of Botswana's GDP. Other major economic sectors in Botswana are cattle farming and tourism.
Josh Parsons gives Botswana's flag a B+. I think it deserved an A.
Botswana's biggest problem is the AIDS virus. Botswana has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world, with about 37% of the population HIV positive.
For more information on Botswana, see the BBC country profile, the CIA World Factbook entry, and the Wikipedia entry.
Disclaimer: the only criterion for being an Obscure Country of the Week is that I myself don't know much about it.
Brock on 01.12.05 @ 11:06 PM CST
Replies: 3 comments
on Thursday, January 13th, 2005 at 1:38 PM CST, SadPunk said
Are you picking them alphabetically? Just curious.
on Thursday, January 13th, 2005 at 5:54 PM CST, Brock said
There is no planned order for the Obscure Countries. They're going to be just whatever strikes my fancy, probably based on news items I find interesting.
on Friday, January 14th, 2005 at 11:22 AM CST, texasfrank said
There is a whole series of enjoyable books about "The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency" that are set in Botswana. I recommend them - you can also learn a lot about the country - apparently it is not so bad as poor countries go.