Western Province encompasses the area formerly known as Barotseland in the colonial era. The geography of the province is dominated by the Barotse Floodplain of the Zambezi river, extending from the confluence of the Zambezi with the Lungwebungu and Kabompo Rivers at the northern border of the province, to a point below Senanga and above the Ngonye Falls in the south.
This floodplain is inundated from December to June, and is fed by other rivers with their own floodplains, and serves as a vast reservoir storing the waters of the Zambezi. The seasonal flooding is very important to agriculture in the province, providing natural irrigation for the grasslands on which huge herds of cattle depend, and bringing water to the settlements along the edges of the plain.
Away from the Zambezi and its tributaries, much of the landscape is a gently undulating series of fossil sand dunes from a previous extension of the Kalahari Desert, with numerous lagoons, pans and seasonal swamps in hollows between the dunes. Dry grassland plains, teak forest, miombo woodlands and patches of evergreen Cryptosepalum forest cover the land. Mongu is now well supplied with paved roads and drainage. The main one and the chief access for the province is the kilometre Lusaka -Mongu road or Great West Road , which in the past has been poorly maintained and is still in a very bad condition, mainly between Kaoma and Mumbwa.
There is an ambitious regional plan to provide the first ever major link between the road networks of Zambia and Angola via a Barotse Floodplain causeway from Mongu to Kalabo with a bridge over the Zambezi, replacing the current dry-season ferry at Sandaula.
A paved highway would then be built north-west to the Angolan border continuing to Lumbala N'guimbo and Cuito Cuanavale. It has become in recent times very busy by copper trucks from Northwestern Province. The other roads in the province vary from a few good dry-season gravel roads such as Kaoma to Lukulu , to sandy or muddy tracks passable only by trucks and four-wheel drive vehicles.
