Tsodilo

Rising abruptly from the Kalahari sands of northwestern Botswana, the hills of Tsodilo hold more than 4,500 rock paintings within barely ten square kilometres — a density that has earned them the nickname 'Louvre of the Desert'. The archaeological record here spans at least 100,000 years of human presence and environmental change, and local communities still revere the hills as a dwelling place of ancestral spirits. UNESCO inscribed Tsodilo in 2001.