Tarkastad
| Tarkastad | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Coordinates | 32 ° 0 ′ S , 26 ° 16 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | South Africa | ||
| Eastern Cape | |||
| District | Chris Hani | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | ZA-EC | ||
| local community | Enoch Mgijima | ||
| height | 1296 m | ||
| Residents | 6059 (2011) | ||
| founding | 1862 | ||
 Main street in Tarkastad
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Tarkastad is a city in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa . It is the administrative center of the municipality of Enoch Mgijima in the district of Chris Hani .
geography
Tarkastad, together with the township of Zola, has 6,059 inhabitants (2011 census). Tarkastad is in the Great Karoo . The place is surrounded by mountains up to 1680 meters high. The two distinctive elevations Martha and Mary belong to them .
The Tarka River (Afrikaans: Tarkarivier) flows through the city and from there westwards to the Great Fish River (Groot Vis-Rivier). To the south of the city lie the winter mountains , which are up to 2371 meters high .
history
Until the settlement by white settlers, San lived in the region, which left behind numerous rock paintings . Boers settled here at the end of the 18th century . Tarkastad became the seat of a parish in 1862. The name may be based on the Khoikhoi word traka, "women"; stad stands for “city” in Afrikaans. Two years later the place was given parish status. Around 24 kilometers north-north-west of the Second Boer War in 1901, the "Battle of the Elands River" took place on a pass, in which Lieutenant Sheridan, a cousin of the later British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, died .
Economy and Transport
The regional roads R61 ( Cradock - Queenstown ) run through Tarkastad in a west-east direction and R344 from Sterkstroom in the north to Adelaide in the south. The R401 branches off the R61 northwest of Tarkastad and leads to Hofmeyr .
Personalities
- Steve Biko (1946–1977), founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, born in Tarkastad
Web links
- Tourist information at sa-venues.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Official website of the municipality ( Memento of February 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ^ Tarkastad , Zola (2011 census), accessed December 30, 2013
- ↑ Tourist information at sa-venues.com (English), accessed on December 5, 2012