Okavango is the first major celebration in text and photographs of Africa's last Eden. More than 130 extraordinary photographs, taken during a year-long assignment in the region by award-winning photographer and naturalist Frans Lanting, capture with powerful immediacy the beauty and drama of Africa's breathtaking Okavango Delta. Spreading over 8,600 square miles, this vast wetland in the heart of the Kalahari supports an unparalleled diversity of wildlife. From its origins in the highlands of Angola, the Okavango River descends to the near-desert of northern Botswana, where it fans out as the world's largest inland delta; an ecosystem of a size and complexity rivaling any on earth, a rare place where desert and swamp dwellers meet. Hippos, crocodiles, zebra, impalas, buffalo, giraffe, lions, hyenas, and the continent's largest unharassed elephant population find refuge and replenishment in the seasonal ebb and flow of fresh water into the delta. Together, Lanting's words and images tell of the dynamic movement of water throughout the year and of the rhythms of flora and fauna in response to it; of the spectacular array of wild creatures; of the people who live in this frontier region; and, finally, in a thoughtful epilogue, of the difficult environmental challenges faced by this complex natural system and its hopeful future as a place where Africa's free-roaming wildlife stands a chance of surviving intact into the twenty-first century. No other photographer has captured the variety of Africa's wildlife and the richness of its landscape with such vividness, sympathy, and skill. Okavango is an unforgettable portrait of Africa's remarkable primeval oasis.