Gaborone

Gaborone is the capital of Botswana, in the southeast of the country close to the border with South Africa. It is named after Kgosi Gaborone, a chief of the Tlokwa whose people settled by the Notwane River in the 19th century.

Until independence the government of the Bechuanaland Protectorate was run from Mafeking, a town outside its own borders. A site near the Tlokwa village was chosen for the new capital because it lay on the railway and had water from the Notwane, and the city was built in less than three years. Botswana became independent in 1966 with Gaborone as its capital and Seretse Khama as its first president. The town was planned around a central mall, with government offices at one end and the town hall at the other.

Debswana, the diamond mining company owned jointly by De Beers and the government, has its head office in Gaborone. De Beers moved the sorting and sale of its rough diamonds from London to the city in the early 2010s, and buyers from around the world come to its sales there. Kgalagadi Breweries brews St Louis lager at its brewery in Gaborone.

The Three Dikgosi Monument shows bronze statues of the chiefs Khama III, Sebele I and Bathoen I, who traveled to London in the 1890s to keep their land out of the hands of Cecil Rhodes's company. The National Museum and Art Gallery holds San rock art, baskets and paintings by Botswana artists. Zebras and wildebeest graze in Gaborone Game Reserve on the eastern edge of the city, within sight of the suburbs. The University of Botswana, opened in the 1980s on a campus near the center, is the oldest university of the country.