Grootfontein
| local community Grootfontein Gei-ǀous ( naq )Otjiwanda Tjongue ( her ) |
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| motto | Fons vitae (source of life) |
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| Basic data | |||
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Population Area Population Density |
16,400 (2011 census) 70.1 km² 234.0 inhabitants / km² |
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State Region Constituency |
Namibia Otjozondjupa Grootfontein |
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| Establishment date | September 8, 1896 | ||
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License plate phone code |
G 067 |
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| Website | grootfonteinmun.com.na | ||
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Political data
Mayor : Penny Mwazi ( SWAPO ) Chief Executive Officer : Charles Kariko (SWAPO) Last election: 2015 Next election: 2020 City administration address: |
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Geographical data
Geographical coordinates : 19 ° 33 '57 "S, 18 ° 6' 10" E Height : 1,460 |
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Grootfontein ( Afrikaans for Great Source ) is a municipality in the constituency of the same name Grootfontein in the Otjozondjupa region in Namibia . In 2011 the city had 16,200 inhabitants.
The Damara called the place Gei-ǀous , the Herero called it Otjiwanda Tjongue , which means "edge of the hill of the leopard".
geography
The town of Grootfontein is 1460 meters above sea level in the Maisdreieck (also known as the “Copper Triangle”) together with Otavi and Tsumeb , the intensely agriculturally used area of the Otava Mountains with high precipitation values.
Sights in the vicinity are the Dragon's Breath Hole and the 60-ton Hoba meteorite .
climate
The average annual rainfall is around 550 millimeters, which is well above the Namibian average and allows arable farming.
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Average monthly temperatures and precipitation for Grootfontein
Source: WetterOnline ; wetterkontor.de
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Natural monument
The baobab , an African baobab tree ( Adansonia digitata ), also known as Reuse Kremetartboom and Tree 1063 , is a giant tree on the site of Farm Keibib No. 1063 , about 60 km north of Grootfontein. The baobab, which was considered the largest known baobab tree in the country at the time it was named a monument, has a trunk circumference of 18.5 meters, its branches are up to 12 meters long and its age is estimated to be up to 3,000 years. It has been a Namibian National Monument since July 2nd, 1951 .
history
founding
In 1885 40 Boer families - Dorsland trekkers - settled in the area acquired by the merchant and hunter William Worthington Jordan from the Ondonga king Kambonde kaMpingana , which also included the copper mines in the Otavi mountainous region. They had moved with others from the north-west of the Transvaal in what is now South Africa to Angola in 1878 and 1881 , were tired of the Portuguese administration and wanted to make a new start here. They named the area Upingtonia after the Governor of the Cape Province Sir Thomas Upington in the hope of his protection, but without his consent. The Swiss botanist Hans Schinz , who traveled to South West Africa from 1885 to 1887, described in detail the life of the Boers in Grootfontein in his publications. In the meantime, the German Empire had negotiated "protection treaties" with the Herero, which also included this area, but it was unable to offer the Boers the protection they wanted. Jordan was murdered on June 30, 1886 at the behest of the brother of Kambonde in Ovamboland . Finally, in 1887, the Boers withdrew, partly back to Angola, partly to South Africa.
Under German colonial administration
On August 18, 1892, the South West Africa Company Limited (SWACO) was founded in London to take over the Damaraland concession from the German government. The concession contained the former territory of the Republic of Upingtonia as well as extensive mining and railway rights. It was linked to the requirement to develop the northern part of the "protected area". Immediately after the company was founded, expeditions were sent out to research the ore deposits and to build the railway; The company's general agent was Georg Hartmann , who chose Grootfontein as his headquarters and had two buildings built. In 1894, with the approval of the imperial government, he allowed 25 Boer families under their leader, Commander Lombard, who were on the trek from the Transvaal to Angola, to settle in Grootfontein. When Governor Theodor Leutwein visited Grootfontein in 1895, he found "a friendly farming village" according to the colonial newspaper. In September 1896, 25 men of the German Schutztruppe under Lieutenant Steinhausen were stationed in Grootfontein and the military station, the so-called Old Fort , was built. Today it serves as a local history museum that is well worth seeing . From 1897 to 1899 medical officer Philaletes Kuhn was district chief of Grootfontein and from 1899 to 1904 first lieutenant Richard D. Volkmann . Under Kuhn, the then swampy and malaria-infested headwaters were rehabilitated and Grootfontein developed into a malaria-free area.
The provisional school lessons on the premises of the SWA Company came to an end when, in 1902, Grootfontein opened a government school with the headmaster Otto Rohmann. The managing director of SWACO was the Norwegian engineer Tobias Toennesen, who had come to the country in 1900 for OMEG's rail projects.
The Herero uprising in 1904 it was learned in Grootfontein because of the relative seclusion until days after its outbreak. Thereupon the troops were put in defense readiness, the settlers were warned by messenger and called to the station. On January 18, a strong patrol of riders from the Schutztruppe and volunteers rode out to meet the approaching Herero under their chief Mbatona. After about 20 kilometers there was a fierce battle at the Uitkomst farm, in which Mbatona and many of his comrades-in-arms were killed. The patrol also had one death and several wounded. The next day, the Otjituuo and Okatjoruu outstations and the Okatjongeama farm were attacked, killing two horsemen and two farmers. The threat to the district subsided in March when the Herero began to gather at Waterberg . At the time, the settlement commissioner Paul Rohrbach sent by the Colonial Office was in Grootfontein. In his book From South West Africa's Troubled Days , he described the events of those weeks like a diary.
The current town center was measured in 1907 on behalf of the SWA Company by the surveyor Steffen, it was given the street names at that time, and in 1908 the railway from Otavi reached the town. New residential buildings were erected, the Wecke & Voigts and Rothe & Hagen stores were established, the Nord Hotel was opened, and the “Central Hotel” (now the “Meteor Hotel”), which burned down in the 1930s, and other shops were opened . The mines in Abenab and Berg Aukas were now able to transport their zinc and vanadium ores on a large scale, and Grootfontein steadily developed into an important trading and agricultural center.
During the First World War , Grootfontein was briefly the administrative seat of German South West Africa after the capital Windhoek fell to the South Africans in May 1915.
South African administration
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In July 1915, Grootfontein was occupied by South African Union troops, and the last German district official Berengar von Zastrow handed over to the military magistrate Major JH Mayne. This was followed by Major Frank Harold Brownlee in 1916 and Captain RHG Gage in 1918, who administered the place until 1919. From January 1920, when South Africa received the former German colony from the League of Nations as a C mandate for administration, the military administration was replaced by civil administration. Now South African civil magistrates were responsible for the town and district (including the towns of Tsumeb and Otavi). They no longer resided in the military station, but moved into the newly built and still existing courthouse, which also houses the police. The local administration was initially carried out by the SWA Company, in 1933 a so-called Village Management Board was formed, which was responsible for electricity, water, drainage, road maintenance, etc. In September 1947, the place finally received a municipality with municipal administration ( Municipality ); the lawyer James Rathbone became the first mayor of Grootfontein.
The Rietfontein dairy, around 35 kilometers west of Grootfontein, made a significant contribution to the development of agriculture in the district. August Stauch , who owned the Rietfontein farm, initiated the purchase of free land and, with capital from the German government, founded the Land & Settlement Co. Including Rietfontein, she owned around 54,000 hectares of land, of which farms were given up on favorable terms. In order to enable the farmers to have a steady income, a dairy was established that produced butter. The farmers were able to milk their cows, centrifuge the milk and deliver the cream to the dairy. In addition, pigs could be fattened with the skimmed milk. In this way, the debt pressure was alleviated, since the farmers usually only had income from the annual cattle sales and otherwise had to finance their operations with loans. In 1946 the company, which had been confiscated as enemy assets during the war, was acquired and restructured by the Rietfontein Cooperative Creamery founded by the farmers . Until the 1970s it proved to be an important support for the existence of milk producing farmers.
In addition to farming and the SWA Company, the SWANLA (South West African Native Labor Association) were very important for trade, industry and employment from 1943 onwards. This organization was based in Grootfontein, recruited contract workers in the northern tribal areas and placed them with employers such as the mining and fishing industries, farmers and households across the country. Between arrival and departure from and to their destinations, the workers were housed in the SWANLA buildings. When they came back from their seasonal work assignment, Grootfontein was the last chance they had to buy the goods they needed at home. The many shops in town that specialize in these customers then made good business. In 1976 SWANLA was dissolved and the contract system abolished, which resulted in severe economic losses for the place.
Grootfontein regional airport , which initially served mainly to air transport the seasonal workers recruited by SWANLA to the diamond mines and the fishing industry, was expanded into a major military airfield in the 1970s , along with the establishment of a large garrison for the South African armed forces .
Local politics
The following official final result was determined in the 2015 local elections .
| Political party | be right | Share of votes | Seats |
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| SWAPO | 2019 | 70.1% | 5 |
| DTA | 546 | 19.2% | 1 |
| APP | 154 | 5.4% | 1 |
| RDP | 65 | 2.3% | 0 |
| RP | 63 | 2.2% | 0 |
| All in all | 2847 | 100% | 7th |
Economy and Transport
Today, Grootfontein is the second largest city in the Otavi triangle after Tsumeb and an important local economic center. Due to the comparatively high annual rainfall for Namibia, the region around Grootfontein is extremely well suited for the production of field crops. In addition, cattle farming and copper mining also play an important role. The city has a connection to the Namibian road and rail network via the B8 national road and an extension of the Otavibahn . Grootfontein Airport is the largest regional airport in the Otavi triangle.
Educational institutions
Elementary schools
- German private school Grootfontein
- Gerson Tjombe Primary School
- Kalenge Primary School
- Makalani Primary School
- Shamalindi Primary School
- W. Nortier Primary School
High schools
- Grootfontein Secondary School
- Fridrich Awaseb Secondary School
- Grootfontein Agri College
Town twinning
Kunshan , People's Republic of China
sons and daughters of the town
- Leon Jooste (* 1969), politician and minister
- Behati Prinsloo (* 1988), international model
Remarks
- ↑ Note: This article contains characters from the alphabet of the Khoisan languages spoken in southern Africa . The display contains characters of the click letters ǀ , ǁ , ǂ and ǃ . For more information on the pronunciation of long or nasal vowels or certain clicks , see e.g. B. under Khoekhoegowab .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Namibia 2011 Population and Housing Census Preliminery Results. Namibia Statistics Agency, April 2012, accessed May 9, 2012
- ↑ Weather Grootfontein, Namibia. WetterOnline , accessed on September 10, 2009 (German).
- ^ Hans Schinz: A new peasant state in south-west Africa , St. Gallen 1886 and “German South-West Africa”, Zurich 1891
- ↑ German Colonial Atlas with Yearbook 1918 - The War in German South West Africa
- ↑ Official election results of the regional and local elections 2015, ECN, December 4, 2015 ( Memento of December 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 150 kB)
- ^ Municipality of Grootfontein , accessed April 5, 2010.
- ^ Website of the German private school Grootfontein
Coordinates: 19 ° 34 ′ S , 18 ° 6 ′ E