Kimberley (South Africa)
| Kimberley | |||
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| Coordinates | 28 ° 45 ′ S , 24 ° 46 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | South Africa | ||
| North Cape | |||
| District | Frances Baard | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | ZA-NC | ||
| local community | Sol Plaatjie | ||
| height | 1229 m | ||
| Residents | 96,997 (2011) | ||
| founding | 1869 | ||
| Website | www.kimberley.co.za (English) | ||
 Kimberley town center behind the Big Hole
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Kimberley is the capital of the North Cape Province of South Africa . It is located in the municipality of Sol Plaatjie in the Frances Baard district . Kimberley has 96,977 inhabitants (as of 2011), making it the largest city in the province.
geography
location
The city is located at the mouth of the Vaal in the Oranje on the eastern border of the North Cape to the province of Free State . To the east lies Bloemfontein , the sixth largest city in the country. There are no other larger cities in the area. To the west lies the town of Upington at a greater distance .
climate
The summer in Kimberley lasts roughly from November to February. The average maximum temperatures are then over 30 degrees Celsius. The summer months are also the rainiest, especially at the beginning of the year the rainfall is well above the annual average. From January to March there are an average of ten days of rainfall per month. The wettest month is February with an average of 76 mm of precipitation.
The coldest and driest phase is between June and August. In July there are on average only two days with precipitation and a total of 27 mm of precipitation. The mean maximum temperature this month is 19 degrees Celsius, the minimum is usually around 3 ° C. Temperatures below zero are the exception in Kimberley, the record low is −8 ° C.
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Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Kimberley
Source: wetterkontor.de
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history
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In 1866 diamonds were discovered near the Orange River and later on a hill in what is now the center. Three years later, in 1869, the first diamond was found in the host rock (later known as the kimberlite ) . Then a “diamond rush ” set in and the city of Vooruitzigt or New Rush was created. In a few months the city grew to over 30,000 inhabitants. In 1871 the diamond fields were claimed from different sides and after a mediation process they were awarded to the Griqua leader Nikolaas Waterboer, who came under British protectorate . As a result, Griqualand West was proclaimed on October 27, 1871 , and after delays in London, New Rush was renamed Kimberley by proclamation on July 5, 1873, after the British Colonial Minister, the Earl of Kimberley . Griqualand West was annexed to the Cape Colony on July 27, 1877 by the Griqualand West Annexation Act .
The diamonds were mined by hundreds of diamond seekers in individual claims in the open pit. Three factors caused this degradation to come to an end:
- With increasing depth, opencast mining became more difficult, expensive and dangerous,
- an international financial crisis led to a drop in prices for diamonds and
- the diamond-bearing rock layer of the yellow ground was cut through; Few believed they could find diamonds in deeper layers as well.
Cecil Rhodes , who had been primarily involved in the diamond trade in previous years, bought the less profitable and less promising mines and founded the De Beers company , named after the original owners of the farm on which the diamond fields were located. He then also acquired the majority of shares in Barnato Brothers and Company from his opponent Barney Barnato and merged the two companies under the De Beers umbrella. Eventually the Barnato brothers sold their stake in Rhodes for £ 5,338,650. The mining of the diamonds continued underground. The most famous diamond mine is the Big Hole .
During the Second Boer War (1899-1902) Kimberley was a garrison of the British military leader Redvers Buller . Nevertheless, the Boer generals Jan Christiaan Smuts , Louis Botha and James Barry Munnick Hertzog managed to siege the area between October 14, 1899 and February 15, 1900.
In 1912, Kimberley merged with the neighboring town of Beaconsfield to form the City of Kimberley .
politics
In the national parliamentary elections in 2009 , the African National Congress (ANC), the party of President Jacob Zuma , received 62.6 percent, the Democratic Alliance (DA) 16.7 percent of the vote in Kimberley. As the provincial capital of the North Cape, Kimberley performs many administrative tasks.
The city received worldwide political attention in May 2000 when representatives of several diamond-producing countries from southern Africa met to decide on the so-called Kimberley Process . This is a complex system that is supposed to prevent the trade in so-called blood diamonds through state certificates of origin . Blood diamonds are smuggled diamonds that were used to finance various wars in Africa. There are now 47 countries (the EU countries counted as one) participating in the Kimberley Process.
traffic
air traffic
The Kimberley Airport ( IATA code: KIM), with more than 150,000 passengers a year of South Africa's eighth largest airport and was 2008/2009, the only international airport in South Africa with increasing passenger volume. It is located seven kilometers south of the city center. Its catchment area is mainly in the eastern part of the Northern Cape Province, there are scheduled flights to various major South African cities.
Rail transport
There are regular train connections to Cape Town , Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg, among others . They are operated by the Transnet Freight Rail company.
Kimberley has a two-kilometer tram route , making it the only tram in South Africa. It was established in 1985 and is mainly used for tourism.
Road traffic
From Kimberley the national road N8 leads east to Bloemfontein. The N12 national road crosses Kimberley in a north-east-south-west direction.
Infrastructure and economy
economy
The city was founding of South Africa's first stock exchange , the Kimberley Royal Stock Exchange . It was opened on February 2, 1881.
Even today the city lives partly from diamond mining, yet the city's mines only contribute around 5% to the total South African diamond production. Tourism has now become another important branch of the economy.
Infrastructure
On September 2, 1882, Kimberley was the first city in the southern hemisphere to receive electric street lighting .
media
The first daily newspaper appeared on October 15, 1870 under the name Diamond Field . Other historical newspapers from this period were the Diamond News and the Independent . The city's current daily newspaper is called Diamond Fields Advertiser and has been published since March 23, 1878. Another daily newspaper , albeit one in Afrikaans, is the Volksblad . It is published by Naspers- Verlag and has its headquarters in Bloemfontein, but maintains a local section for the Northern Cape Province. The paper has been around since November 18, 1804, and has been published daily since 1925.
Education
The city currently has the following secondary schools (as of 2010):
- Adamantia
- Diamantveld
- Kimberley Boys' High School
- Kimberley Girls' High School
- Northern Cape High School
- St Boniface College, Galeshewe
- St Cyprian's Grammar School
- St Patrick's College, Kimberley (formerly CBS Kimberley)
- Technical High School Kimberley (HTS Kimberley)
The Perseverance School and Gore Browne Training College were at the time of apartheid because of the Group Areas Act closed.
Culture and sights
The big hole
The Big Hole is the remaining open pit of the former Kimberley Mine . A total of 2,722 kilograms of diamonds were extracted from the Big Hole . The open pit is often referred to as "the largest hole ever dug by human hands". In the immediate vicinity of the Big Hole is the Kimberley Mine Museum . You can take a look into the huge hole from a viewing platform. The museum also houses De Beers Hall , which has a collection of uncut rough diamonds and some replicas of diamonds.
Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Gardens
The gardens with the Diggers Fountain with five life-size sculptures of diamond prospectors in the center honor the diamond mine owner Sir Ernest Oppenheimer . He was also mayor of Kimberley and was a co-founder of the Anglo American Corporation .
Museums and galleries
The McGregor Museum has a lot on the history and ecology of the North Cape Province. There are also exhibitions on the history of the city of Kimberley and the world religions. Cecil Rhodes built the house in 1897 as a hotel and sanatorium for wealthy people, while Rhodes himself lived there during the siege by the Boers at the turn of the century. The museum has existed in the building since September 24, 1907.
The Duggan-Cronin Gallery houses around 8,000 photographs that Alfred Duggan-Cronin took between 1919 and 1939 of the original inhabitants of the area and their traditions. Furthermore, original rock carvings are exhibited there.
Other museums include the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum (science and archaeological exhibitions) and the Humphreys Art Gallery (art collection).
Africana Library
Rare printed works, manuscripts , photographs and maps related to South Africa are kept in the Africana Library . The focus of the collection is on the Kimberley region, diamond mining and geology and archeology in the northern part of the Cape region. The collection was created in 1887 as a collection area in the former Kimberley Public Library . European immigrants left behind early prints , the oldest from 1475, and manuscripts from the 17th century. The collections are housed in a historic building.
Churches
The most famous church is the Anglican Cathedral Church of St. Cyprian . It has the longest nave in South Africa. Other churches include the Kimberley Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Roman Catholic St Mary's Cathedral of the Diocese of Kimberley .
More buildings
- De Beers's Consolidated Mines Limited Head Office (formerly De Beers Headquarters)
- Harry Oppenheimer House (diamonds are rated here)
- Star of West Club (Kimberley's first pub)
Sports
The former coach of the South African national cricket team , Micky Arthur, is from the city like the famous former cricket players Nipper Nickelson, Xenophon Balascas, Ken Viljoen, Ronnie Draper and Pat Symcox. The De Beers Diamond Oval stadium (capacity: 11,000) in Kimberley was also one of the venues for the 2003 Cricket World Cup .
The GWK Griquas , a club of the South African Rugby Union , is based in the Hoffe Park Stadium (capacity: 18,000 spectators) in the city.
Karen Muir , who was born in Kimberley, broke the world record in the 110-meter backstroke distance at the Junior World Swimming Championships in Blackpool when she was just 12 years old . This made her the youngest female athlete to ever break a world record.
sons and daughters of the town
- Bevil Rudd (1894–1948), South African athlete and Olympic champion
- Kurt Kolle (1898–1975), psychiatrist and book author
- Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews (1901–1968), professor of anthropology , ANC politician and Botswana diplomat
- Jessie Vihrog (1907-1996), German actress
- Gideon Nxumalo (1929–1970), musician, composer, presenter
- Karen Muir (1952–2013), South African swimmer
- Dipuo Peters (* 1960), South African politician
- Noel Andrew Rucastle (* 1968), South African clergyman and Roman Catholic bishop of Oudtshoorn
literature
- Alfred W. Stelzner: The diamond pits of Kimberley . in: Treatises of the Natural Science Society Isis Dresden e. V., year 1893, pp. 71–85 ( digitized version )
Web links
- Official Website of Kimberley (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ 2011 Census , accessed on October 2, 2013
- ↑ Google Maps: Map of Kimberley. Accessed December 31, 2014 . In: google.de
- ^ Climate data for Kimberley. Archived from the original on March 4, 2012 ; Retrieved December 9, 2013 .
- ↑ Historic diamond mining at the Big Hole / Kimberley. Archived from the original on October 25, 2007 ; Retrieved December 9, 2013 .
- ↑ When Kay met Sidney - Ch 2 ( Memento from July 3, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- ^ Sessional Papers By Great Britain Parliament . House of Commons, 1902.
- ↑ National election results: Detailed Results. Retrieved December 9, 2013 .
- ^ A b c Thoralf Teubner: South Africa Tour - Kimberley. In: suedafrikatour.de. March 3, 2009, accessed December 31, 2014 .
- ^ Brian Roberts: Kimberley, turbulent city. 1976, ISBN 0-949968-62-5 , editor: D. Philip, Historical Society of Kimberley and the Northern Cape.
- ^ History of South Africa. (No longer available online.) In: geschichte-suedafrika.eu. Archived from the original on December 31, 2014 ; accessed on December 31, 2014 .
- ↑ Michael Morris: Every Step of the Way. HSRC Press, 2004, ISBN 9780796920614 limited preview in Google Book Search
- ^ Brian Roberts: Kimberley, turbulent city . 1976, p. 173
- ^ Website of the Big Hole ( Memento of September 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on June 25, 2010.
- ↑ suedafrika.net: Kimberley, South Africa - Attractions and Accommodation. In: suedafrika.net. Accessed December 31, 2014 .
- ↑ Kimberley Africana Library. on www.africanalibrary.co.za (English)
- ^ Rosemary Jean Holloway: The History and Development of the Kimberley Africana Library its Relationship With the Kimberley Public Library . Master thesis, UNISA 2009. online at www.uir.unisa.ac.za (English)