Monalanong Hill

Where is Monalanong Hill?

Monalanong Hill is part of the Hills south of Gaborone.

You will find it in: Botswana.

Summit: 24.841° S, 25.665° E

The story behind it

Botswana is mostly flat country, with the sands of the Kalahari filling the middle of it, so the rocky rise of Monalanong Hill in the south-east is something unusual, even though the measured heights differ by a few metres. The hill is made of hard old rock that heats up in the sun, and after the rare summer thunderstorms the water runs off quickly into dry riverbeds that fill for only a day or two. Thorny acacias, grey shrubs and tough grass grow between the stones, and in the early morning hornbills, rock hyraxes and small antelopes move about before the heat arrives. Cattle posts and villages lie in the valleys around, and the border with South Africa is only a short distance away. No marked trail leads to the top, so the hill stays quiet.

Find it on the globe

Monalanong Hill is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.