Southcentral Africa

Large rivers carve across the great basalt plateau of south central Africa into fertile plains, undulating hills, and low mountains that are home to a staggering number of life forms. In the upper left section of this image two large rivers are visible: the Cuando (left) in Angola and the Zambezi (right) in Zambia. Right where the Zambezi crosses the Zambia-Zimbabwe border are the Victoria Falls (lower center, about 60 km east of where Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe converge). Farther downstream, the Zambezi flows into Lake Kariba (bottom right corner), which sits on the borders of southern Zambia and northern Zimbabwe. In the bottom center of the image, the Okavango forms a portion of the border between Angola and Namibia, then crosses Namibia'´ narrow Caprivi Strip into northern Botswana, where it broadens out into the Okavango Delta swamp. This 5,000 square-mile swamp (12,950 sq km) is wet year-round, and fills with quite a lot more water during the wet season. Also visible in this image are a number of scattered small fires, which are marked in red. This true-color Terra MODIS image was acquired on April 26, 2003.

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Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Published April 28, 2003
Data acquired April 26 - 26, 2003

Source:

Terra > MODIS

Topic:

Human Dimensions > Natural Hazards > Fires

Collection:

Visible Earth