Western Province is one of the 10 provinces in Zambia and encompasses most of the area formerly known as Barotseland. The capital is Mongu, and together with the neighbouring town of Limulunga, Mongu is treated as the capital of Barotseland. Geography 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. Transport Mongu is now well supplied with paved roads and drainage . The main one and the chief access for the province is the 610-kilometre Lusaka–Mongu Road from Central Province, through Kaoma to Mongu. There is a plan to link Zambia to its neighbouring Angola and as of 2016, the Barotse Floodplain Causeway, which extends the Lusaka-Mongu Road and connects Mongu with the other side of the Zambezi River (Kalabo) has been completed. The M10 Road is the other main road in the province, connecting Mongu with Livingstone via Senanga, Sioma (where it crosses the Zambezi) and Sesheke (where it bypasses the Katima Mulilo Border Post and crosses the Zambezi again as the Katima Mulilo Bridge) 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. Demographics As per the 2010 Zambian census, Western Province had a population of 902,974, (though the current population (2021) is estimated to be 1,076,683.) accounting to 6.72% of the total Zambian population of 13,092,666. There were 433,505 males and 469,469 females,