Land tenure and property rights in the Limpopo river basin are a blend of traditional systems, the colonial system and post-independence government policies. In most of the basin states, land is classified as state or public land, free or leasehold land, and customary communal land. State land consists of national parks, gazetted forests and protected land, and state farms. The national parks are largely uninhabited, while communal settlements are comparatively crowded to settlements under lease or freehold

In Botswana, the three major types of land tenure include ethnic land (70 percent of the country), freehold land (6 percent of the country) and state land (24 percent of the country).

Access to land has generally been inequitable in the basin states, most particularly in South Africa and Zimbabwe. In South Africa, the government inherited a land ownership problem in which 87 percent of arable land is whiteowned, while just 13 percent is black-owned. The figures for arable land ownership in Zimbabwe were similarly at 70 and 30 percent, respectively.

In Zimbabwe, the inequitable land ownership forced the government to adopt a new land policy aimed at redressing the imbalances. However, the land redistribution process in the country precipitated a confrontation, and the resultant backlash led to an impasse with the international finance institutions and the donor community.