Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...
.
The town has about 41,000 inhabitants and is situated along the main road between the capital
Gaborone
Gaborone ( , , ) is the capital and largest city of Botswana with a population of 246,325 based on the 2022 census, about 10% of the total population of Botswana. Its agglomeration is home to 421,907 inhabitants at the 2011 census.
Gaboron ...
and the second largest city
Francistown
Francistown is the second largest city in Botswana, with a population of about 103,417 and 147,122 inhabitants for its agglomeration at the 2022 census. and often described as the "''Capital of the North''" or as the natives would have it “''T ...
.
Mahalapye has a bus station, a railway station, a couple of hotels and a market area with many shops and fast food restaurants, Water Shed mall is the latest attraction to those travelling from Gaborone to Francistown, great place for refreshments. It also has several petrol stations, some open 24 hours per day. Being situated on the edge of the
Kalahari
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa.
It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal de ...
desert it is quite dry, and the local waterways are dry except during the rainy season. In recent times, it has become a convenient stop-over town for travelers travelling to and from Gaborone.
This town is located on the
Tropic of Capricorn
The Tropic of Capricorn (or the Southern Tropic) is the circle of latitude that contains the subsolar point at the December (or southern) solstice. It is thus the southernmost latitude where the Sun can be seen directly overhead. It also reac ...
. Thus at approximately 13:11 hours on 21 December, or at solar noon on Summer Solstice, the sun will be directly overhead at this site. To mark this geographic feature there is a small monument just outside town on the 23rd parallel, or 23 degrees South of the equator. At this time the sun will be directly above this monument where the sun reaches its furthest point South. At this point there will be no shadow on the monument. The record high temperature ever registered in Mahalapye was . The lowest temperature registered in Mahalapye was .
The
Government of Botswana
The Government of Botswana often abbreviated as GOB, is the union government created by the constitution of Botswana having the executive, parliament, and the judiciary. The Seat of the Government is located in Gaborone, Botswana. The governmen ...
. Retrieved on 26 March 2013.
Notable Natives
Actor, writer and playwright
Donald Molosi
Donald Leungo Gosego Molosi (born 11 December 1985) is a Botswana actor, writer and playwright. Molosi debuted off-Broadway in 2010 as Philly Lutaaya in ''Today It's Me'' making him the first Motswana to perform off-Broadway. In 2011, Molosi w ...
was born in Mahalapye in 1985.
Politician,
lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...
and
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
Duma Gideon Boko was born in Mahalapye on March 6, 1969.
Politician, communist Dr Gaobamong Kenneth Shololo Koma was born in Mahalapye on the 27 July 1923.