The Kalahari Desert is a large arid desert in southwestern Sub-Saharan Africa, or as it is also known, Kgalagadi Africa. The Kalahari is derived from this word 'kgalagadi', which in Tswana means 'the great thirst'.

The Kalahari Desert occupies central and southwestern Botswana, as well as parts of west central South Africa and eastern Namibia.

Mostly flat with an average elevation of about 1 000 metres above sea level, the sands of the Kalahari vary from red and brown to white in places. 

Where the sands are elevated, they run in parallel lines of dunes - typically from north to south or nothwest to southeast (depending on the winds) - and vary in height from about six metres to some 60 metres. Some of these dunes have been known to stretch 80 kilometres in....