The Kavango East Region stretches from just west of Rundu up to the eastern boundary of the former Kavango Region. The Region covers an area of 23 983.2 km2 and constitutes about 2.9% of Namibia’s extent. The region is bordered by the Kavango River and Angola to the north, the Zambezi Region and Botswana to the east, the Kavango West Region to the west and the Otjozondjupa Region to the south. There are 6 Constituencies in the Kavango East Region: Rundu Urban, Rundu Rural, Mashare, Ndonga Linena, Ndiyona and Mukwe. Rundu is the capital of the Region.

Kavango East is well endowed with natural resources and its scenic beauty related to the river, the woodlands and its wildlife linked with higher than average rainfall makes it a very attractive region.

The distribution of people speaking different languages broadly follows the tribal areas of the region. Some 46% of the population in the former Kavango Region speak Rukwangali as their mother tongue, a language that is spoken by the Vakwangali and Mbunza tribes; 21% speak languages of Angolan origin (mainly Nyemba), while 18% speak Rumanyo, a language spoken by the Vagciriku and Shambyu tribes. Eight percent speak the Thimbukushu language of the Mbukushu tribe, while 5% speak other Namibian languages (mainly Oshiwambo) and 2% use European languages.

While 43% of Namibians reside in urban areas, the Kavango East Region is 47% urbanized with people residing mostly in and around the town of Rundu. Historically, people settle where water and soils permit farming, creating a pattern of unevenly distributed settlements within the region with nearly three-quarters of the population living near the Kavango River.

The Kavango East Region lies in the middle of the Kavango Basin, bordering both Angola and Botswana. The two main Angolan rivers, the Cubango and Cuito rivers, carry water from the Angolan highlands into the Kavango River, which runs through both the Kavango Regions into Botswana's Okavango Delta where rainfall is lower than anywhere else in the Basin.

The flow of the Kavango River is the main artery of the Region and is impacted by and impacts on all its physical characteristics from rainfall to the soil structure and carrying capacity, which again impacts on the vegetation and animal life that is found in the Region. This, in turn, impacts on the economic activities and livelihoods of the residents of the Region, which is heavily dependent on agriculture and tourism. As such, the Kavango River is the very lifeline of the Region and its most important feature.