Polokwane
| Polokwane | |||
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| Coordinates | 23 ° 54 ′ S , 29 ° 28 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | South Africa | ||
| Limpopo | |||
| District | Capricorn | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | ZA-LP | ||
| local community | Polokwane | ||
| height | 1312 m | ||
| surface | 106.8 km² | ||
| Residents | 130,028 (2011) | ||
| density | 1217 Ew. / km² | ||
| founding | 1886 | ||
| Website | www.polokwane.gov.za (English) | ||
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Polokwane (until 2005 Pietersburg ) is a city in the South African province of Limpopo . It is located in the municipality of Polokwane in the district of Capricorn and is the capital of the province of Limpopo.
history
The city, 1312 meters above sea level , on the main route north towards Zimbabwe , was founded by Voortrekkern in 1886 and named after the general Petrus Jacobus Piet Joubert Pietersburg. During the Second Boer War , the city was the capital of the Boer republic Transvaal . In 1901 the city was conquered by the British.
Pietersburg experienced strong industrialization since 1960, with five factories being built around this time. The Industrial Development Corporation built an entire industrial complex in the city in 1966, which consisted of twelve units. As part of the border industries' policy at that time to locate production facilities on the edge of the homelands , it was called a factory nest . A township was built next door for the workers required for this .
In 1984, 79,000 people (including 14,000 white people) lived in the city. In 2011 the number in Polokwane rose to 130,028 residents. In addition to a train station and Polokwane International Airport, there is a diamond mine in the area and particularly pure quartz sand is mined. Numerous industrial companies are based here.
The Council for Geoscience , the geoscientific authority in South Africa, maintains an office here.
In 1988, the Roman Catholic Territorial Abbey of Pietersburg was raised to a diocese, which was renamed in 2009 according to the change of the place name in Diocese of Polokwane . Originally the diocese goes back to the establishment of the Apostolic Prefecture North-Transvaal in 1910 in what was then Pietersburg.
In 2002, the South African government started a nationwide renaming of cities whose names were reminiscent of the colonial past. In 2005, Pietersburg was renamed Polokwane. Polokwane is the Sepedi word for "a safe place".
climate
Thanks to its altitude, Polokwane has a temperate climate with average daily highs of 25 ° C to 26 ° C and average minimum temperatures of around 15 ° C in the summer months from November to February. In the winter months of June and July, the mean minimum temperatures drop to 5 ° C, the daily maximums reach around 18 ° C to 19 ° C on average. Precipitation falls mainly in summer (around 90 mm per month), the winter months are rather dry.
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Monthly average temperatures and rainfall for Polokwane
Source: wetterkontor.de
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tourism
Nearby is the extensive Polokwane Nature Reserve , which is home to a number of bird species. The Bakone Malapa Open-Air Museum presents the history and culture of the Sotho people.
Polokwane hosted games of the 2010 World Cup . Four group matches took place in the Peter Mokaba Stadium .
sons and daughters of the town
- Arthur Maimane (1932–2005), journalist and writer
- Audrey Motaung (1952–2019), singer, musician
- Retief Goosen (* 1969), professional golfer
- Victor Matfield (born 1977), rugby player
- Modjadji VI. (1978-2005), tribal queen
- John Smit (* 1978), captain of the South African national rugby union team
- Caster Semenya (* 1991), track and field athlete and world champion over 800 m
literature
- The great coron. The modern reference work in 20 volumes. Volume 14: Peck - Quel. Corrected reprint. Coron, Lachen am Zürichsee 1992.
Web links
- Official site of the City (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Municipal boundaries South Africa
- ^ SAIRR : A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1966 . Johannesburg 1967, p. 158
- ↑ 2011 census , accessed October 2, 2013
- ^ Council for Geoscience: Council for Geoscience - Polokwane Office . on www.geoscience.org.za (English)
- ↑ Old PlaceNames ( English ) Department of Arts and Culture. Archived from the original on February 8, 2010. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
- ↑ Meaning of the name municipalities ( Memento from August 29, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) (English)