The Okavango's frontier town — mokoro canoe into the world's largest inland delta, hippos at sunset, and the most important safari airstrip in Africa
Maun is the gateway to the Okavango Delta — one of the world's great natural wonders, a vast inland river delta that fans across the Kalahari sand where the Okavango River meets a tectonic fault system and disappears into the desert rather than reaching the sea. The delta supports extraordinary concentrations of wildlife in channels, lagoons, and palm-island papyrus beds accessible only by mokoro (traditional dugout canoe) or light aircraft. Maun itself is a dusty frontier town of safari lodges, airstrips, and Land Cruisers, but it pulses with the energy of a gateway city — every Okavango cam…
Maun was established as the administrative capital of the Ngamiland district in 1915 under the British Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana). The town was founded at the site of the Tawana people's royal encampment at the edge of the Okavango Delta, where the delta's water supply made permanent settlement possible in an otherwise semi-arid region. Maun remained a very small and isolated administrative post until the 1970s when charter flights and the development of eco-tourism infrastructure began transforming it into Africa's premier safari gateway. The Okavango Delta was designated a UNE…