[1] Shoshong is located just north of the Tropic of Capricorn at 23°02′S 26°31′E / 23.033°S 26.517°E / -23.033; 26.517, in the Central District of Botswana, about 40 km (25 mi) west of Mahalapye.

Oral traditions from the village points that the Baphaleng chief invited Bangwato from Mosu where they were continuously harassed and vulnerable to Matebele attacks.

[1] Being the meeting place of trade routes from south and north it was of considerable importance to early explorers (including David Livingstone) and traders in South-Central Africa.

[1] Scottish missionary John Mackenzie (1835–99), who lived at Shoshong from 1862 to 1876, "believed that the Ngwato and other African peoples with whom he worked were threatened by Boer freebooters encroaching on their territory from the south", and campaigned "for the establishment of what became the Bechuanaland Protectorate, to be ruled directly from Britain.

[1] To make up for the loss of the defensible location, Khama had made an alliance with the British who were preparing a forward movement to take over Mashonaland and Matabeleland.

"[10] Historically Shoshong’s chieftainship had been held by three tribes from three different wards of the Bakaa, BaPhaleng and Bagwato simultaneously sitting at the Kgotla to deliberate the issues of the people.