Bela-Bela (
Tswana/Pedi for "the pot that boils")
is a town in the
Limpopo Province
Limpopo is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The capital and largest city in the province is Polokwane, while th ...
of South Africa. Deriving its name from the geothermic
hot springs
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...
around which the town was built, it was called Warmbaths, until 2002.
The town is situated in the
Waterberg District of the Limpopo Province. It lies off the
N1 road between
Pretoria
Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa.
Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends ...
and
(Pietersburg). Its hot springs produce 22,000 litres per hour at .
The main hot springs holiday resort (previously run by state-owned company Aventura, formerly called Overvaal) in the town is still branded ''Warmbaths''.
History
![Waterslides at Warmbaths](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Waterslides_at_Warmbaths.JPG)
When the
Tswana tribes first moved into the region in about the 1800s, they discovered hot springs in the area.
The
Voortrekker
The Great Trek ( af, Die Groot Trek; nl, De Grote Trek) was a Northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyon ...
Carl Van Heerden established the first farm in what is now Bela-Bela and called it ''Het Bad''. In 1873,
President Burgers' Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal.
* South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...
government bought the land and established a resort called ''Hartingsburg'' after the prominent Dutch biologist
Pieter Harting
Pieter Harting (27 February 1812 – 3 December 1885) was a Dutch biologist and naturalist, born in Rotterdam. He made contributions in a number of scientific disciplines, and is remembered for his work in the fields of microscopy, hydrology, ...
.
The British occupied the town during the
Anglo-Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
, and renamed the post office ''Warm Baths'' in 1903, and proclaimed the boundaries of Warmbaths to be the entire farm of ''Het Bad''.
In 1920 Warmbaths was proclaimed a
township
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...
(in the legal, not racial sense) and the township was designed by architect John Abraham Moffat in that year. In 1950, it became a
magisterial district. In 1932 Warmbaths became a village town and was established as a town council in 1960.
Called ''Warmbaths'' in English, the Afrikaans name for the town was ''Warmbad''.
On 14 June 2002 the South African government officially renamed the town to ''Bela-Bela'' (meaning "boiling boiling").
Incorrect variations on this spelling can also be sometimes found, such as "Bella Bella"
and "Bela Bela".
Climate
See also
*
List of reduplicated place names
This is a list of places with reduplication in their names, often as a result of the grammatical rules of the languages from which the names are derived.
Duplicated names from the indigenous languages of Australia, Chile and New Zealand are l ...
References
{{Waterberg District Municipality
Populated places founded by Afrikaners
Populated places established in 1873
Populated places in the Bela-Bela Local Municipality
Hot springs of South Africa