Zambia - The Barotse Cultural Landscape

S 13 50 - E 22 45 S 16 40 - E 23 45 The Barotse landscape is a vast expanse of open land with a gently undulating topography incised with a network of canals that are denuded with the waters of the Zambezi when it bursts its banks at the height of the rainy season from October to May. It is also known as the Bulozi Plain, Lyondo or the Zambezi Floodplain and is one of Africa's great wetlands. It is designated as a possible Ramsar site on the basis of it being of high conservation value. The landscape is a flat plateau at an elevation ranging between 914 to 1218m tilting gently to the south. The floodplain stretches from the Zambezi's confluence with the Kabompo and Lungwebungu Rivers in the north, to a point about 230km south, above the Ngonye falls, south of Senanga. Along most of its length its width is over 30km, reaching 50km at the widest, just north of Mongu, main town of the plain, situated at its edge.