City of Francistown, Botswana — Towns & Travel Guide

What is City of Francistown known for?

Francistown is known as the second-largest city in Botswana and as the meeting point of the Tati and Ntshe rivers, with the Shashe River running nearby and the frontier with Zimbabwe only 90 kilometres off. The city dates from 1897. Gaborone, the capital, lies roughly 400 kilometres away, which leaves Francistown the main urban anchor of eastern Botswana.

Where is City of Francistown?

A river junction anchors Francistown. Francistown grew up at the confluence of the Tati and the Ntshe, a pair of watercourses that join inside the built-up area and gave the settlement its reason for standing on this particular ground. The Shashe River runs close by.

Beyond the streets, eastern Botswana opens out into low, dry bush country, tropical in its band of the world and firmly in the southern hemisphere. Distance shapes the district as much as terrain does. Gaborone, the capital, lies roughly 400 kilometres off across the interior, while the border with Zimbabwe stands about 90 kilometres away, close enough that the frontier governs much of the traffic on the roads leading out of Francistown.

The City of Francistown is an administrative district in its own right, a single urban unit inside Botswana rather than a spread of rural country. Water gives the ground what relief it has. The Tati, the Ntshe and the Shashe River trace the only strong lines across an otherwise level landscape, and the streets of the city fill the ground between the first two.

What is City of Francistown like?

Francistown carries the standing of a second city. Ranking behind only the capital gives it a civic weight that shows in the way eastern Botswana looks here for work, schooling and administration instead of making the long journey to Gaborone. Offices and schools here work in English.

The river names sit in a different register from the town's own: Tati and Ntshe belong to the ground, while Francistown is a name of another origin entirely, fixed on the map from 1897. The frontier counts for a great deal. A border 90 kilometres off makes the place a crossing point as much as a destination, and movement between Botswana and Zimbabwe has run through these streets for as long as the town has existed.

What the city offers a visitor is practical rather than ceremonial. There is a night's rest, a resupply, and the choice of turning toward Gaborone or toward the Zimbabwe frontier the following morning, and that plain usefulness is much of what the second city of Botswana is about. The Shashe River country beyond the edge stays rural by comparison.

What is the history of City of Francistown?

The year is 1897. Francistown was established then at the confluence of the Tati and the Ntshe, and it has held that ground ever since, growing into the second-largest city in Botswana. The Shashe River lies just beyond.

The district known as the City of Francistown was drawn around the built-up area afterwards, giving the place its own administrative standing separate from the country stretching toward Zimbabwe.

What is the climate of City of Francistown?

Warmth defines the year in Francistown. Francistown lies within the tropical belt of the southern hemisphere, so the warmest months fall when the northern half of the world is in winter, and the cool stretch arrives in the middle of the calendar year. The Tati and the Ntshe meet inside the city and the Shashe River runs close outside it, and all three answer to the same seasonal pattern across eastern Botswana.

How do you get to City of Francistown?

Two roads matter. The long one runs some 400 kilometres to Gaborone, the capital, and the short one covers the 90 kilometres to the border with Zimbabwe, which places Francistown squarely on the route between the two countries. Nearly everyone reaches Francistown by road.

Inside the district everything sits near the crossing of the Tati and Ntshe rivers, so moving about the city once here is a short business.