Botswana · City of Francistown
Where to Stay in Francistown, City of Francistown
Francistown is a city of northeast Botswana on the Tati river, the country's second city, an old gold-rush town on the road to the north.
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Where to stay in Francistown
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Where you stay in Francistown turns on the town or the bush. The centre keeps the market, the museum, and the old buildings within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the town. The bush spreads all around.
Trains rumble through the streets. Out toward the hills and the parks, the town gives way to the game farms, the old mine workings, and the long road north to Chobe. A room out of the centre trades the streets for the wide bushveld, the thorn trees, and the huge skies of the north.
The bush runs on for miles. Stay downtown for the town, or out for the bush. The old gold fields and the wide bush hold the northern city.
About Francistown
Francistown is the old gold town of northeast Botswana.
What is Francistown known for?
On the Tati river in the dry northeast of the country, it grew in a gold rush and became a market town, and it keeps the worked-out gold mines of the Tati fields, the old colonial buildings of the centre, the busy road and rail to the north, and the wide bushveld all around. The dry bush runs to the sky. Old headgear rusts by the tracks.
What are the main landmarks in Francistown?
The old gold fields are the pride of Francistown. The worked-out mines of the Tati hills, where southern Africa's first gold rush ran, are the emblem of the town, out of downtown. Old shafts scar the bush.
The abandoned workings of the goldfields lie in the hills around the town nearby, while the colonial buildings, the Tati river, and the road to Chobe mark the country around Francistown.
What is the history of Francistown?
Francistown was born in a gold rush. In the eighteen-hundreds prospectors found gold in the Tati hills, one of the first rushes of southern Africa, and a rough mining town sprang up. The mines drew the diggers.
Companies worked the reefs of the Tati fields, and the town grew as their railhead and market, older than the cities to the south. The gold at last gave out. When the reefs were worked through, the mines closed, but the town lived on by its railway and its trade.
The road opened the north. From Francistown the rail and the road ran on to the great parks and rivers of the north, and the city grew as the second town of Botswana, keeping its mines, its market, and its bush. The trains still cross the plain.
Francistown keeps its old gold town on the Tati.
Where is Francistown?
Francistown lies in the northeast of Botswana, on the Tati river near the Zimbabwe border. The city sits on a dry plain of bushveld and thorn, in a hot low country of the eastern hardveld, with the Tati and Shashe rivers winding by and the road running north toward Chobe and the great parks. The dry bush spreads all around.
Thorn trees dot the plain.
What is the climate of Francistown?
Francistown has a hot, dry savanna climate. Hot summers and mild winters cross the bushveld, with summer thunderstorms and dry sunny winters on the plain. Summer storms break the heat.
Winter days stay clear and warm.
How do you get to Francistown?
Francistown lies in northeast Botswana, on the road and rail to the north. The line and the highway run to it from Gaborone and Zimbabwe, and a road leads on to Chobe. Trains cross the bush.
Gaborone lies south down the line.
Updated August 2026