The new Bwabwata National Park combines the old Caprivi Game Park and the Mahango Game Park. It stretches from the Okavango River to the Kwando River and is zoned for multiple use by local communities. The park is not fenced on its northern boundary, between Namibia and Angola, and although fenced in the south between Namibia and Botswana, both the Okavango and Kwando floodplains, which cannot be fenced, create wide open corridors between the two countries.

The new park covers an area from the Okavango River in the west, running along the Angola/Namibia border in an easterly direction to the Kwando River near Kongola, southwards with the river as its boundary up to the Botswana/Namibia border, and thence westwards back to the Okavango River. The entire area is 571,500 hectares; from west to east it measures 190 km, with a width, from north to south, of between 30 to 40 km wide.
Bwabwata is made up of the former Caprivi and Mahango Game Parks; the Caprivi Park was first proclaimed in 1968, being controlled by the South African Defence Force (SADF) until Namibia’s Independence in 1990, thereafter managed as a conservation area by the Ministry of Tourism & Environment (MET). The much smaller Mahango Game Park – just 22,500 hectares - was proclaimed in 1989 but boasts some wonderful and rare wildlife including Sable and Roan Antelope, Lechwe, Sitatunga, Hippos and some huge Baobab trees too. It is also home to two of Namibia's most endangered birds, the Greyhead Parrot and the Wattle Crane.
Within the new Park is the Buffalo area, until now managed by the MET. To the easternmost part of Bwabwata, adjacent to the Kwando River has long existed the Kwando Triangle, a strip of virtual no-man’s land, outside the official boundary of the Caprivi Game Park, but separated from the Mayuni Conservancy by the river; this triangle is now also part of Bwabwata.
Upwards perhaps of 5000 people will be allowed to remain in the park, including Khwe, Hambukushu and many other groups of ethnic origin; as the minister stated in his address: “the central area of Bwabwata will be zoned to provide for a multiple-use area of community-based tourism, trophy hunting, settlement and development, with communities neighbouring or living in the Park given conditional tourism rights such that they can establish either on their own or through a joint venture.” Meanwhile Mahango, Buffalo and Kwando will now form the three core areas of Bwabwata; they will be zoned for special protection and controlled tourism, with all entries by permit only. The game viewing in these areas will be simply spectacular, that apart from at least 340 species of birdlife – Buffalo boasts many beasts of that same name and some lovely waterfront areas; Kwando, meanwhile, is synonymous with Elephant, Giraffe, Buffalo, all manner of antelope, including Reedbuck and Red Lechwe, Hippos galore and plenty of big cats too. There can be few more awesome sights than watching many hundreds of Elephant drinking at the famed Horseshoe Bend at certain times of the year.