Thamalakane River

The Thamalakane River is a river that actually isn't a river as such. Located in Botswana, Africa, at the southern end of the Okavango Delta, it has no beginning (spring) and no end (delta). It is the result of the Thamalakane fault line - beginning to form about 2 million years ago by a geological process that currently splits apart Africa along the Great Rift Valley.

When the land between two parallel fault lines (the Gumare fault line and the Kunyere fault line) started dropping, the Okavango River's flow was blocked by the Thamalakane fault and it started to fan out and built myriads of water channels - what is now known as the Okavango Delta.

One of the main channels draining the Okavango Delta is the Boro River. Being blocked by the fault, it empties literally at a right angle into the water way created by the fault, the Thamalakane River. Roughly 40km to the west, the water found a break in the Thamalakane fault. Again at a right angle it empties the Thamalakane River and forms the Boteti River.

In older days, not only the Boro River fed the Thamalakane River but also smaller channels like the Boronyana and Shashe.

Along the Thamalakane River the village of Maun developed.