Etosha Pan

Etosha Pan is a vast, dry salt pan in northern Namibia and the central feature of Etosha National Park. It is a shallow basin that floods briefly during unusually wet seasons.

Salt pan: A flat basin where water evaporates and leaves a surface enriched with salts. Etosha Pan is a particularly large example of this landform.
Lake Etosha: A large prehistoric lake that occupied the Etosha depression before shrinking to a seasonal wetland and salt pan. Its former extent helps explain the pan's broad, level floor.
Etosha National Park: A protected wildlife area in northern Namibia centered on Etosha Pan. The pan dominates the park's geography and gives it its name.
Fisher's Pan: A shallow, seasonally flooded pan in Etosha National Park, west of the main Etosha Pan. It is a distinct wetland within the wider Etosha landscape.
Endorheic basin: A drainage basin whose water does not reach the sea, instead collecting or evaporating inland. Water entering the pan has no outlet to the ocean.
Owambo Basin: A sedimentary basin in northern Namibia and southern Angola that includes the Etosha depression. The pan lies within this broad geological basin.
Etosha waterholes: Natural and artificial watering places used by wildlife in Etosha National Park. They concentrate wildlife around the otherwise dry pan and surrounding plains.
Andoni Plain: A seasonally inundated grassland near the eastern edge of Etosha Pan in Namibia. Its flooding illustrates how runoff spreads into habitats beside the main pan.
Cuvelai-Etosha Basin: An inland drainage basin spanning parts of Angola and Namibia, with seasonal flows toward Etosha. Its channels supply the pan during wet periods.
Etosha depression: A broad topographic low in northern Namibia that contains Etosha Pan and its surrounding grasslands. The pan occupies the lowest, central part of this depression.

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