Mondo Knows Facts
The Kalahari is not quite a true desert
It gets enough rain to grow grass and trees, so many classify it as dry savanna The Kalahari spreads across Botswana, Namibia and South Africa over roughly 900,000 square kilometres. Its sand comes from river sediments laid down long ago and now reddened with iron. The Okavango River ends in an inland delta on its northern edge, feeding wildlife instead of the sea. It sits in Mondo's world geography collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
Go further
More facts like this
The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the worldSpanning over nine million square kilometres, the Sahara covers much of North Africa.Antarctica is technically the largest desert on EarthAntarctica receives an average of less than 200 millimetres of precipitation each year along its coast and far less inland.The Gobi is a cold desert made by distanceThe plateau lies so far inland that monsoon moisture is gone before the air arrivesThe Sonoran is the wettest desert on EarthTwo separate rainy seasons support trees, large cacti and animals found in few other desertsThe Patagonian Desert lies in the Andes rain shadowWesterly winds drop their moisture on the mountains, leaving the eastern plains dryThe Namib Desert is considered the oldest desert on EarthArid conditions have persisted in the Namib Desert along southwestern Africa coast for over 55 million years.
🗺️ World Geographyfact 125 of 200
← → to keep reading, or swipe
Tags: deserts, africa, climate
The Kalahari is not quite a true desert: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- It gets enough rain to grow grass and trees, so many classify it as dry savanna. The figure is taken from National Geographic, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a world geography fact?
- Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.