Q 01/05

What colour is the sand that covers vast areas of the Kalahari?

A) White

B) Red

C) Black

D) Grey

Answer · why

B) Red

Red sand covers much of the Kalahari because a thin layer of iron oxide, in effect rust, coats each grain.

Q 02/05

The name Kalahari is said to come from a Tswana word meaning what?

A) The salt country

B) The endless plain

C) The land of lions

D) The great thirst

Answer · why

D) The great thirst

The great thirst is the usual gloss of the Tswana word kgala, and it fits: most of the Kalahari has no streams at all, and standing water lies only in...

Q 03/05

Roughly how large is the Kalahari Desert?

A) About 90,000 sq km

B) About 300,000 sq km

C) About 900,000 sq km

D) About 3 million sq km

Answer · why

C) About 900,000 sq km

About 900,000 sq km is the usual estimate, yet across all that space only one river, the Okavango, flows the whole year round.

Q 04/05

The Kalahari's only permanent river ends not in the sea but in what?

A) A salt lake

B) An inland delta

C) An underground cavern

D) A hydroelectric dam

Answer · why

B) An inland delta

Its marshes in the north-west of the desert are rich in wildlife.

Q 05/05

Why do geographers hesitate to call the Kalahari a true desert?

A) It gets daily coastal fog

B) It lies below sea level

C) It is salt, not sand

D) Too much grows there

Answer · why

D) Too much grows there

Too much grows there: grasses and thorn trees cover most of the sand, and the north has open woodland and even forest, so much of it counts as dry sav...