Gaborone
— — a quiet capital on a low dry plain.
Not only on a wall.
“Botswana's capital sits on a flat acacia plain in the southeast, near the South African border, with the long ridge of Kgale Hill watching from the south. The city is young by African standards — chosen as capital only at independence in 1966 — and grew out from the dam on the Notwane River. Mornings are cool and dry, afternoons big-skied and bright. The Three Dikgosi Monument anchors the central business district where the new towers go up.
Gaborone, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Gaborone is the capital and largest city of Botswana, set on the eastern edge of the country about fifteen kilometres from the South African border. The city sits at roughly 1,014 metres on a flat acacia savannah pierced by isolated hills, the largest being Kgale at 1,287 metres. Founded as capital in 1965, a year before Botswana's independence from Britain, it was built almost entirely from scratch around the Notwane River and Gaborone Dam. The metropolitan population is roughly 421,000, making it small for an African capital and unusually orderly by reputation. The seat of the National Assembly and the Office of the President sits along the Government Enclave near Khama Crescent.
The high plateau gives Gaborone a clear, dry climate for most of the year. Winters from May to August are cool and bright, with daytime highs near twenty-three Celsius and night lows that can drop to four. The rains arrive between November and March in short hard afternoon storms, and the acacias along Independence Avenue come into leaf almost overnight. Air quality is generally good, helped by the elevation and the wide open plain to the west toward the Kalahari, though winter dust from the south raises the haze in late August.
Botswana Day on 30 September marks the country's 1966 independence, and Gaborone holds the national parade at the National Stadium with a flypast by the Botswana Defence Force. The President's Day weekend in July fills the central district with kgotla-style public meetings and music. The Maitisong performing arts festival, run since 1987, brings ten days of theatre and dance to venues around Maru-a-Pula in late March or early April. Outside the calendar, the Kgale Hill trail and the Mokolodi Nature Reserve south of the dam carry the weekend traffic.