Lerala is a village in Central District

Central District (Botswana)

Central is the largest of Botswana's districts in terms of area and population. It encompasses the traditional homeland of the Bamangwato people. Some of the most politically connected Batswana have come from the Central District, including former President Sir Seretse Khama, former President...

 of Botswana

Botswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...

. The village is located 30 km from the Limpopo River

Limpopo River

The Limpopo River rises in central southern Africa, and flows generally eastwards to the Indian Ocean. It is around long, with a drainage basin in size. Its mean annual discharge is 170 m³/s at its mouth...

 and the border with Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

 and approximately 90 km east of Palapye

Palapye

Palapye is a large town in Botswana, situated about halfway between Francistown and Gaborone . Over the years its position has made it a convenient stopover on one of Southern Africa's principal north–south rail and road routes...

. The population of Lerala was 5,747 in 2001 census.

An Australian company, DiamonEx Limited, is planning to open a diamond

Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

 mine 15 km north-west of the village. The mine also known as Martins Drift Diamond Project is scheduled to open early 2008 and will employ 230–290 people to produce an estimated 330000 carats (66 kg) per year.
Previously a joint company between De Beers

De Beers

De Beers is a family of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea...

and the Botswana government operated between 1998–2001 a smaller exploratory diamond mine at the same site.