Ghanzi

Ghanzi, village, west-central Botswana. The village is located at the northern rim of the Kalahari (desert) and is the starting point of a 500-mile- (800-km-) long cattle trek—one of the longest such routes remaining active in the world; cattle are driven on horseback or by truck across the Kalahari southeastward to slaughterhouses at Lobatse.

The surrounding area comprises state-owned land and several thousand square miles of European-owned freehold farms, given as land grants in 1898 to some farmers from South Africa; their descendants still occupy the farms. The economy of the region is based on cattle ranching and the seasonal farming of sorghum, millet, and corn (maize). The Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the largest of Botswana’s wildlife reserves, is inhabited by San (Bushmen) and has black-backed jackals, elephants, foxes, ostriches, springboks, and zebras. Besides Ghanzi, other important villages in the region are Kalkfontein, Matapa, and Ncojane. Pop. (2001) 9,934; (2011) 14,809.