Keetmanshoop

local community Keetmanshoop Nu-gouses ( naq )
Details Details
Keetmanshoop from a bird's eye view (2017)
motto	Laborando vincimus (win with work)
Basic data
Population Area Population Density	18,900 (2011 census) 586.9 km² 32.2 inhabitants / km²
State Region Constituency	Namibia ǁKaras Keetmanshoop City
Establishment date	April 14, 1866
License plate phone code	K 63
Website	keetmanshoopmunicipality.org.na

Pronunciation of Keetmanshoop

Keetmanshoop ( listen ^{? / I} ) is the regional capital of the ǁKaras region in southern Namibia and is located about 500 kilometers south of the capital Windhoek . The place was named after the German merchant and banker Johann Keetman ("hoop" means "hope" in Afrikaans ) and today - together with its suburb Krönlein  - has 18,900 inhabitants.

geography

Keetmanshoop is located in the center of southern Namibia and in the western foothills of the Kalahari basin. Around 30 kilometers west of the city run the Bogu Mountains, which are part of the Great Edge Step and through whose hilly landscape the Fish River also runs. It has been dammed by the Neckartal dam since 2018 . The eastern outskirts of the city are largely flat, with only a few mountain ranges such as the Düseldorn (1116 meters) or the Grauer Kuppe (1022 meters).

To the northeast of the city are the quiver tree forest and the giant playground .

City structure

Keetmanshoop is divided into different districts , including among others

• Krönlein (east of the B1 national road )
• Noordhoek (north of the railway line)
• Tseiblaagt, also recently Hendrik Tseib (south of Krönlein)
• Westende (center of the city)

climate

Like much of southern Namibia, Keetmanshoop has an arid climate with little rainfall.

Keetmanshoop
Climate diagram
J F. M. A. M. J J A. S. O N D.     23   35 19th     33   34 19th     38   32 17th     15th   28 14th     4th   24 10     1   21st 7th     1   21st 6th     1   23 7th     3   27 11     5   30th 13     10   33 16     12   35 17th Temperature in ° C ,  precipitation in mm Source: wetterkontor.de

Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Keetmanshoop Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Max. Temperature ( ° C ) 35.0 33.7 31.8 28.3 24.2 21.2 21.3 23.4 27.4 29.9 32.8 34.5 O 28.6 Min. Temperature (° C) 18.5 18.5 17.3 13.7 9.6 6.8 6.2 7.1 10.5 12.9 15.6 17.4 O 12.8 Precipitation ( mm ) 23 33 38 15th 4th 1 1 1 3 5 10 12 Σ 146 Hours of sunshine ( h / d ) 11.4 10.5 9.8 10.2 9.8 9.6 9.9 10.3 10.6 10.6 10.7 10.8 O 10.3 Rainy days ( d ) 3 4th 4th 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 2 Σ 19th Humidity ( % ) 29 35 39 39 36 38 34 29 26th 25th 24 25th O 31.6 Source: wetterkontor.de

history

Postage stamp for German South West Africa postmarked Keetmanshoop 1899

The origins of the city go back to a settlement by a Nama tribe at the end of the 18th century. This had separated from the main tribe based in Hoachanas (the "Red Nation") and moved to a new pasture area on the banks of the Swartmodder under its leader Tseib (hence also called "Tseib'scher Tribe") - then called "Modderfontein". The actual place Keetmanshoop was only founded in 1866 as a station of the Rhenish Mission . It was named after the German industrialist Johann Keetman, who provided the mission with the necessary financial means, but never visited the site himself. Thanks to his support, the mission station gradually grew into a German settlement: the missionary Tobias Fenchel had the first school built in 1888. In 1894 a military post was stationed in Keetmanshoop under Lieutenant Bethe. The latter began in the same year with the construction of a fort for the German "Schutztruppen" , which was completed in 1898. Later it had to give way to the local police station.

Celebration Keetmanshoop (1905)

From 1895 the stone church designed by Wilhelm Sander was built. With his financial commitment, Keetman combined the hope (hence the Afrikaans name "Keetmanshoop") to be able to achieve pacification by Christianizing the warring tribes resident in Namaland.

During the 1960s, according to the South African apartheid policy , residential areas were created for the different ethnic groups of the city, which were strictly separated from one another and some of them are shaped in this way to this day. The residential area TseiblaAGEN was named after the local captain Henderik Tseib . Krönlein, on the other hand, bears the name of an early German missionary who was active in the area.

In 1994 the former Apostolic Vicariate Keetmanshoop was elevated to the Diocese of Keetmanshoop with the Cathedral of St. Stanislaus .

politics

Municipal council

The following official final result was determined in the 2015 local elections .

Political party	be right	Share of votes	Seats
SWAPO	2337	71.1%	5
DTA	0538	16.4%	1
RDP	0186	05.7%	1
RP	0141	04.3%	0
DPN	0052	01.6%	0
WRP	0035	01.1%	0
All in all	3289	100.00%	7th

Economy and Transport

Keetmanshoop station , 1908

South African Railways steam locomotive outside Keetmanshoop station

Keetmanshoop was already an important stop for traders from the Cape Province heading north when it was founded. Today's national road B1 between Vioolsdrift and Windhoek builds on this track. In 1908 the existing Windhoek – Keetmanshoop railway was extended by the Lüderitz Railway to Lüderitz on the Atlantic . This gave Keetmanshoop a rail connection to the Atlantic and the port of Lüderitz . It was not until much later that today's B4 national road was built through the diamond restricted area to the coast. Today the city is the most important junction for road and rail traffic in southern Namibia and the Republic of South Africa and, with Keetmanshoop Airport, it is also a local air traffic hub.

Keetmanshoop is the economic and administrative center of the Karas region in southern Namibia and is therefore also called the capital of the south. The main industries are tourism and the breeding of Karakul sheep . Further agricultural use is not possible in this region due to the arid climate; Keetmanshoop is located on the edge of both the southern winter rain area and the northern summer rain area, which means that the place and region often receive no rainfall at all for years. On a long-term average, only 100–200 millimeters of rain fall here annually, so that the place’s drinking water supply can only be ensured through the “ Naute Dam ”, about 50 kilometers away .

Culture and sights

Church of the Rhenish Mission in Keetmanshoop

Quiver Tree Forest near Keetmanshoop

Some buildings from the time of German colonial rule still exist as evidence of the founding history of Keetmanshoop : The church of the Rhenish Mission , built in granite by missionary Tobias Fenchel in 1895 , now houses a local history museum, which provides a detailed overview of the city's history.

The Imperial Post Office from 1910 now houses the city's tourist information center. The station building from 1908 has also been preserved. The J. Stephanus Stadium is a sports facility.

Attractions

The quiver tree forests ( Afrikaans : Kokerboom Woud ) to the northeast of Keetmanshoop are a special tourist attraction . These groups of trees of the Aloe dichotoma , mostly located on private farms, have been under nature protection since 1955 . The name refers to the texture of the wood. Since this is easy to hollow out, the people of the San and Khoi Khoi made quivers for their hunting arrows from the branches of this tree.

Furthermore, about 40 km northeast of Keetmanshoop is the Mesosaurus Fossil Bush Camp , from which geological, scenic and historical features of the area can be visited.

Town twinning

• Kangasala
• Lempäälä
• Upington , since September 2018.

Educational institutions

The following schools exist in Keetmanshoop:

• Keetmanshoop Primary School
• Krönlein Primary School
• St. Matthias Primary School ( RKK Namibia )
• Don Bosco Catholic Primary School (RKK Namibia)
• M. Sachs Primary School
• Keetmanshoop Secondary School
• Suiderlig Secondary School
• PK de Villiers Secondary School
• JA Nel Secondary School

A new campus of the University of Namibia has been under construction in the city since 2013 .

sons and daughters of the town

• Zenatha Coleman (* 1993), Namibian soccer player
• Lorraine Jossob (* 1993), Namibian national soccer player
• Jackson Kaujeua (1953-2010), Namibian musician
• Ingeborg Körner (* 1929), German actress
• Hellmut von Leipzig (1921-2016), German soldier
• Gerhard Sandner (1929–2013), German geographer and university professor
• Hans-Günther Toetemeyer (1930-2017), German politician (SPD), Member of the Bundestag, Member of the Bundestag
• Virgil Vries (* 1991), Namibian football player

literature

• Johannes Paul : Germans, Boers and English in South West Africa. Accompanying word to a map of nationalities of Europeans in South West Africa. In: "Koloniale Rundschau" issue 9/10, 1931.

Web links

Commons : Keetmanshoop  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Wikivoyage: Keetmanshoop  - travel guide

Wiktionary: Keetmanshoop  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Official website (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Namibia 2011 Population and Housing Census Preliminary Results. Namibia Statistics Agency, April 2012  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 9, 2012.  
2. ↑ Keetmandhoop on a map from the time of German South West Africa
3. ↑ ^{a b} Keetmanshoop Municipality: Keetmanshoop -Memory Lane  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 9, 2012  
4. ↑ Official election result of the regional and local elections 2015, ECN, December 4, 2015 ( Memento of the original of December 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 150 kB) 
5. ^ ^{A b} North-South Local Government Cooperation Program. Embassy of Finland ( Memento of the original from November 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 25, 2013 
6. ^ Keetmanshoop and Upington municipalities sign MoU. Namibia Press Agency, September 7, 2018.
7. ↑ Karas School Map, Raison.com.na ( Memento of the original from November 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 24, 2011 

Coordinates: 26 ° 35 ′  S , 18 ° 8 ′  E