Gaborone Map

• Gaborone is controlled by the Gaborone City Council. The city council is run by the city clerk and the deputy city clerk. The city is governed by the mayor, deputy mayor, and several committees run by councillors: the financial and general purposes committee; the public health, social welfare and housing committee; the Self-Help Housing Agency (SHAA) management committee; the town planning committee; the trade licensing committee; and the education committee. The councillors elect the mayor and place each other in the committees yearly. The council has 2,515 employees. The city council has been criticised by the Botswana Association of Local Authorities for its closed elections and minimal authority. In 2010, the council had problems with waste management: Frenic, the waste management company hired by the city, sued the Gaborone City Council for unpaid compensation. This has led to a buildup of uncollected garbage.

• Gaborone is the political center of Botswana. Most government buildings are located west of the Main Mall in an area called the Government Enclave. The National Assembly of Botswana, the House of Chiefs of Botswana, the National Archives, and the Ministry of Health. Near the entrance of the parliament building, there is a statue of Sir Seretse Khama, Botswana's first president as well as a memorial dedicated to the three hundred Batswana who were killed from 1939 to 1945. Another monument pays tribute to the Botswana Defence Force soldiers who died in the Rhodesian Bush War.

• Before 1982, Gaborone held one parliamentary constituency, one seat in the Parliament of Botswana. From 1982 to 1993, Botswana was divided into two constituencies, Gaborone North and Gaborone South. A third seat in Parliament was given to a member elected for the whole city of Gaborone. In January 1993, two new constituencies were created: Gaborone West and Gaborone Central. For local government elections, the four constituencies were divided into wards. Gaborone North had seven, Gaborone West had seven. Gaborone Central had six, and Gaborone South had five. In 2002, the city had five constituencies: Gaborone North, Gaborone Central, Gaborone South, Gaborone West North, and Gabororone West South.

• An International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) was established on 24 July 2000 in Gaborone. The academy would provide training for middle managers for the countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

• The Gaborone Dam is located south of Gaborone along the Gaborone-Lobatse road, and provides water for both Gaborone and Lobatse. The dam is the biggest in Botswana, able to hold 141,400,000 cubic metres (3.735×10 US gal). It is also starting to be marketed as a recreational area. The northern end of the reservoir is planned to become an entertainment venue called The Waterfront. There is a yacht club, called Gaborone Yacht Club, also on the northern side of the lake. The southern end houses the Kalahari Fishing Club and a new public facility called City Scapes. City Scapes contains parks, playgrounds, and boating facilities. The dam is popular with birdwatchers, windsurfers, and anglers. However, there is no swimming due to crocodiles and parasitic bilharzias.

• The Gaborone Game Reserve is a 600-hectare (1,500-acre) park east of the city on Limpopo Drive. The reserve was built in 1988 and is now the third-busiest in Botswana. Examples of animals in the park are impala, kudu, ostriches, wildebeest, zebras, gemsbok, bushbuck, springbok, duiker, Common Eland, and warthogs. The park is famous for its birdwatching. Birds in the marshy section of the park include snake eagles, boubou, gallinule, kingfishers, and hornbills.

• Kgale Hill is located a few hundred metres from the city. The hill is nicknamed the Sleeping Giant and is 1,287 metres . There are three different paths to reach the top, usually taking two hours.

• The Mokolodi Nature Reserve is a 30-square-kilometre (12 sq mi) reserve that was created in 1994. It is located 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south of Gaborone. There are many different species of animals found in the park such as warthogs, steenbok, kudu, zebras, giraffes, Common Eland, ostriches, hippos and rhinos. The park helps with wildlife projects in Botswana that include: the reintroduction of the White Rhino and the relocation of “problem” cheetahs. Mokolodi also holds the Education Centre, which teaches children about the conservation projects.

• Somarelang Tikologo (Environment Watch Botswana) is a member-based environmental NGO housed inside an ecological park at the heart of Gabarone. The aim of the organization is to promote sustainable environmental protection by educating, demonstrating and encouraging best practices in environmental planning, resource conservation and waste management in Botswana. The park was officially opened by the Botswana Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Onkokame kitso Mokaila on 27 February 2009. The park contains a playground for children to play on throughout the day, a community organic garden, a recycling drop-off center, and a shop where visitors can purchase products made of recycled material.

• There are more people who have earned a degree or postgraduate qualifications in Gaborone than anywhere else in Botswana. 70.9% of the population of Gaborone has earned at least a secondary-level education

• Gaborone has many primary and secondary schools, both public and private. These include Westwood International School, Maru-a-Pula School, Legae Academy and Thornhill Primary School.

• Gaborone is the center of the national economy. The headquarters of important financial institutions such as the Bank of Botswana, Bank Gaborone, BancABC, and the Botswana Stock Exchange are located downtown, as well as the headquarters for Air Botswana, Consumer Watchdog, Botswana Telecommunications Corporation, and Debswana, the joint diamond mining venture between De Beers and the Botswana government. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has its headquarters in Gaborone; the organization was formed in 1980 to increase economic cooperation among its members and reduce dependence on South Africa. Several international companies have invested in the city: Hyundai, IBM, Daewoo, Volvo, Owens-Corning, and Siemens. Orapa House, owned by Debswana, is where the diamonds mined from Debswana are sorted and valued. Orapa House, located at the intersection of Khama Crescent and Nelson Mandela Drive, has a unique style of architecture that allows the perfect amount of indirect sunlight to shine through the windows in order to accurately sort diamonds. The Botswana Resource Conference is held annually at the Gaborone International Conference Centre.

• According to Mercer's 2010 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, Gaborone has the 203rd highest cost of living for expatriates in the world. Gaborone is the third least expensive city for expatriates in Africa, coming in above Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 208th and Windhoek, Namibia at 205th. Karachi, Pakistan ranks last in the world at 214.