Palapye
| Palapye | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Coordinates | 22 ° 33 ′ S , 27 ° 8 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Botswana | ||
| Central District | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | BW-CE | ||
| height | 928 m | ||
| Residents | 37,256 (2011) | ||
| founding | around 1900 | ||
 View towards the power station
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Palapye is a city in the Central District in Botswana . It gains its importance from the headquarters of the country's largest power plant by far and the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) located here.
geography
In 2011, Palapye had 37,256 residents. The Lotsane , a tributary of the Limpopo , flows through the city.
Palapye is located in the east of the country between the two largest cities of Botswana, Gaborone (about 230 kilometers away) and Francistown (150 kilometers). Serowe is about 45 kilometers west, Mahalapye 70 kilometers southwest.
The average temperature is 20.1 ° C, the annual rainfall is 424 millimeters. The risk of flooding in Palapye, as in Serowe to the west, is greater than in other cities in Botswana because of the uneven rainfall.
history
The place Phalatswe (also called Old Palapye ) was from Bamangwato (Bangwato) under Kgosi Khama III. founded on the west side of the Tswapong Hills . The place was abandoned in 1902, but a ruined church has been preserved to this day (as of 2015). The new settlement Palapye (named after the Impala antelope) was built about 15 kilometers further west on the railway line. In 1981 the city had 9,593 inhabitants. In 1995 there were numerous casualties in floods.
In October 2004, the establishment was Botswana International University of Science and Technology in Palapye by Regulation CAB.33 (B) / 2004 of the president specified. Starting in 2012, the first courses were held at the Oodi College for Applied Arts and Technology . The opening of the Palapye Campus took place after a delay of several years in July 2015. The new establishment is intended to relieve the University of Botswana in Gaborone. In 2015 around 1900 people were studying in Palapye.
Economy and Infrastructure
A few kilometers west of Palapye is the Morupule Colliery Coal Mine of the Debswana Consortium . The bituminous coal extracted there is used to generate energy in the Morupule Power Station , which is supposed to supply around 80 percent of the electrical energy consumed in Botswana. The output of its two times four units is around 720 megawatts (as of 2015), but the four 150 MW units (Morupule B) installed in 2012 suffered long-term disruptions. The previous planning and construction costs amounted to eleven billion pula (around one billion euros; as of 2015); this makes the power plant the most expensive construction project in the country's history. A plan to sell the facility to a Chinese company was halted in 2018.
Palapye is on the A1 trunk road . In the village, the A14 branches off to Serowe and Orapa . Another road leads to the border crossing at Martin’s Drift / Grobler's Bridge and continues on the South African side as the N11 . Palapye is located on Botswana's only long-distance railway line (see Rail Transport in Botswana ). It is used in freight transport as well as by passenger trains and special trains such as the Pride of Africa . A branch line runs from Palapye station to the coal mine.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Census Report 2011, PDF page 170. ( Memento of the original from June 2, 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. (English; PDF; 4.35 MB), accessed on June 6, 2015
- ↑ Climate data at en.climate-data.org (English), accessed on June 7, 2015
- ↑ Rainfall reliability, drought and flood vulnerability. (English; PDF), accessed June 7, 2015
- ↑ Message from dailynews.gov.bw from January 8, 2014 (English), accessed on June 7, 2015
- ^ BIUST: History . on www.biust.ac.bw ( Memento of the original from July 13, 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. (English)
- ↑ BIUST opens next week . Report at mmegi.bw ( Memento from July 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on June 7, 2015
- ↑ Report on weekendpost.co.bw (English), accessed on June 7, 2015
- ↑ Reuters : Botswana cancels plan to sell troubled power plant to Chinese firm. ewn.co.za on June 9, 2018, accessed June 16, 2018
