The Etosha Pan is a vast, bare, open expanse of shimmering green and white that covers around 4,800 sq-km, almost a quarter of the beautiful Etosha National Park. At 130 km long and up to 50 km wide in places, it is comfortably the largest salt pan in Africa and is the park's most distinctive and dramatic feature, visible even from space. The pan was originally a lake but over time the earth’s climate forced the rivers that once fed the lake to change course and flow into the Atlantic Ocean.