Chobe National Park is Botswana's first national park, and also its most biologically diverse. The park contains the wetlands of the Chobe River, which flows into Victoria Falls and the Zambezi to the East. Located in the north of the country, the park is part of the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, and partially borders Namibia's Caprivi Strip. It is Botswana's third largest park.

This park is noted for its large herds of African bush elephants and having a population of lions which prey on them, mostly calves or juveniles, but also subadults.

The original inhabitants of this area were the San bushmen, known as the Basarwa people in Botswana. The San are nomadic hunter-gatherers who were constantly moving from place to place to find food sources, namely fruit, water and wild animals. San paintings can be found inside rocky hills of the park.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the region that would become Botswana was divided into different land tenure systems. At that time, a major part of the park's area was classified as crown land, having become the British protectorate of Bechuanaland. The idea of a national park which would protect the varied local wildlife and promote tourism was first proposed in 1931. The following year, 24,000 km² (9,300 sq mi) around Chobe district were officially declared a non-hunting area, and this area was expanded to 31,600 km² (12,200 sq mi) two years later.

In 1943, heavy tsetse infestations occurred throughout the region, delaying the creation of the national park. By 1953, the project received governmental attention again: 21,000 km² (8,100 sq mi) were suggested to become a game reserve. Chobe Game Reserve was officially created in 1960, though smaller than initially desired. In 1968, the reserve was declared a national park.

At that time there were several industrial settlements in the region, especially at Serondela, where the timber industry proliferated. These settlements were gradually moved out of the park, and it was not until 1975 that the whole protected area was exempt from human activity. Nowadays traces of the prior timber industry are still visible at Serondela. Minor expansions of the park took place in 1980 and 1987.^{[citation needed]}

The park can be divided up to 4 areas, each corresponding to one distinct ecosystem:

With its abundance of water, the park is widely known for its large elephant population, estimated to be around 50,000. The region is home to Kalahari elephants, which form the largest herds of any known elephant population. Kalahari elephants have rather brittle ivory and short tusks, perhaps due to calcium deficiency in the soils. Damage caused by the high numbers of elephants is rife in some areas. In fact, the concentration is so high throughout Chobe that culls have been considered in the past, but are deemed too controversial and have thus far been rejected by park management. In the dry season, these elephants sojourn in the Chobe River and Linyanti River areas. In the rainy season, they make a 200-kilometre migration to the south-eastern stretch of the park. Their distribution zone however outreaches the park and spreads to north-western Zimbabwe.