Ganyesa is a town of about 19,000 people in the

North West The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

province of South Africa. It is located north-west of

Vryburg Vryburg () is a large agricultural town with a population of 48,400 situated in the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipality of the North West Province (South Africa), North West Province of South Africa. It is the seat and the industrial ...

and about south-west of the provincial capital

Mafikeng Mafikeng, officially known as Mahikeng and previously Mafeking (, ), is the capital city of the North West province of South Africa. Close to South Africa's border with Botswana, Mafikeng is northeast of Cape Town and west of Johannesburg. In ...

. It is an administrative centre for the far north-western area of the province, hosting the head offices of the Kagisano-Molopo Local Municipality, a magistrate's court and various national and provincial government offices. The census of 2011 recorded the population of the town as 19,290 people, of whom the vast majority were

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

(98%) and

Tswana Tswana may refer to: * Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions * Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people * Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...

-speaking (93%).

History

Ganyesa is the main town of the Barolong boo Mariba, a faction of the

Barolong Barolong is a tribe of Tswana people from Botswana and South Africa. Their King, Tau was the descendant of King Morolong who is the founder of Barolong tribe. He reigned around 1240 and adopted ''Tholo'' (the Kudu) as the Barolong totem. King Tau w ...

that split from the

Kuruman Kuruman is a small town with just over 53,000 inhabitants in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is known for its scenic beauty and the Eye of Kuruman, a geological feature that brings water from deep underground. The abundance of water ...

community in about 1765 under Kgosi Motsware, and lived as pastoralists and hunters. In the late 19th century, competition with Kora traders for the

Kalahari The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal de ...

trade led to friction between the communities. After the British established the British Bechuanaland colony in 1886, Ganyesa was designated as a native reserve, with an area that in the late 1950s was estimated at .

References

{{Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipality Populated places in the Kagisano-Molopo Local Municipality