Etosha Pan

Etosha Pan, extremely flat salt pan, northern Namibia, covering an area of approximately 1,900 square miles (4,800 square km) at an elevation of about 3,400 feet (1,030 m). This enormous expanse of salt, glimmering green in the dry season, is the largest of its kind in Africa. It was first discovered by Europeans when Sir Francis Galton and Charles Andersson sighted it in 1851. There is geological evidence that the Kunene River of Angola formerly flowed southward into the pan, forming a huge lake. Later the river changed its course westward to the Atlantic Ocean, and the lake, deprived of its inflow, shrank in size, the water evaporating to form the salt pan, or salina. There are lone salt springs on the pan that have built up little hillocks of clay and salt used by animals as salt licks. The pan is fed by a number of nearly parallel channels (oshanas) extending north into Angola that in the monsoon season from December to March fill parts of Etosha (“Place of Mirages”) and surrounding areas with rainwater pools.

The Etosha Pan is the centre of Etosha National Park, which has an area of 8,598 square miles (22,269 square km) and one of the largest accumulations of big-game species in the world, including lions, elephants, rhinoceros, elands, zebras, and springbok. Abundant bird life includes flamingos, vultures, hawks, eagles, ostriches, guinea fowl, and geese. The eastern portion of Etosha National Park has a tree-savanna type of vegetation (abounding in tambouti [a deciduous tree that is locally used for furniture and cabinetwork], wild fig, and date palms); moringa trees are typical of the more arid thorn-shrub savanna of the western part of the park. The German colonial fort of Namutoni (originally built in 1901, destroyed in 1904, and reconstructed between 1905 and 1907), at the eastern end of the pan, resembles a fort of the French Foreign Legion. It has been restored for use as a tourist camp for Etosha National Park. A severe drought and warfare between a guerrilla organization, the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), and South African troops decimated a great deal of the national park’s big-game population in the late 1970s and early 1980s.