//Khara Hais Local Municipality was a local municipality in the Northern Cape province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. It fell within the

ZF Mgcawu District Municipality The ZF Mgcawu District Municipality (known before 1 July 2013 as Siyanda) is one of the 5 districts of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The seat of ZF Mgcawu is Upington. The majority (76%) of its 236,783 people speak Afrikaans (2011 C ...

and governed the town of

Upington Upington ( Nama: //Khara hais) is a town founded in 1873 and located in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, on the banks of the Orange River. The town was originally called Olijvenhoutsdrift ('Olive wood drift'), due to the abundance of ...

and surrounding rural areas. the municipality had a population of approximately 93,500 people, and covered an area of . The unusual spelling of the name comes from the original transcription of the

Khwe language Khwe (also rendered ''Kxoe, Khoe'' ) is a dialect continuum of the Khoe family of Namibia, Angola, Botswana, South Africa, and parts of Zambia, with some 8,000 speakers. Classification Khwe is a member of the Khoe language family. The 20 ...

name, where the click consonant became "//". After

municipal elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...

on 3 August 2016 it was merged with the Mier Local Municipality to form the

Dawid Kruiper Local Municipality Dawid Kruiper Local Municipality is a local municipality of South Africa. It was established after the August 2016 local elections by merging Mier and //Khara Hais local municipalities. and named after the San politician Dawid Kruiper. Politi ...

Geography

The municipality area covered and stretched from the

Orange River The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the north ...

valley northwards to the international border with

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalaha ...

. Irrigation from the Orange River has produced a narrow band of irrigated land along the valley, while the rest of the municipality is desert, being the southernmost extent of 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 coasta ...

. The Molopo and

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 ...

Rivers flow intermittently through this desert area. According to the 2011 census the municipality had a population of 93,494 people in 23,245 households. 65.2% of these people describe themselves as " Coloured", 23.1% as "

Black African Black is a Racialization, racialized classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have ...

", and 9.9% as "

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

". 86.5% of the population speaks

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

as their first language, 5.1% speak

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

, 3.6% speak

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 ...

and 1.9% speak English. Most of the residents of the municipality live in the town of

, which has a population of 74,834. There are several smaller agricultural villages in the Orange River valley; they include (from east to west) Lamprechtsdrif (pop. 817), Karos (pop. 1,249), Leerkrans (pop. 1,383), Straussburg (pop. 1,157), Swartkop (pop. 1,652), Louisvale (pop. 4,435) and Klippunt (pop. 3,473).

Politics

The municipal council consisted of twenty-seven members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Fourteen councillors were elected by

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

in fourteen wards, while the remaining thirteen were chosen from party lists so that the total number of party representatives was proportional to the number of votes received. In the election of 18 May 2011 the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

(ANC) won a majority of sixteen seats on the council. The following table shows the results of the election.

Wine industry

Most of Upington's wines are produced by Orange River Wine Cellars (OWC). The company has six depots in the area (all of them on the banks of the Orange River) at Upington, Kanoneiland,

Grootdrink Grootdrink is a town in !Kheis Local Municipality in the Northern Cape province of South Africa on the N10 National Route and on the Orange River The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. I ...

Kakamas Kakamas is a town founded in 1898 and located in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, on the banks of the Orange River. Originated as at a place where the Orange River could be relatively easily crossed. The spot was first known as Basso ...

Keimoes Keimoes is a town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It lies on the Orange River and is about halfway between Upington and Kakamas. History It attained municipal status in 1949. The name of the town translates in both the Khoekhoe and ...

and

Groblershoop Groblershoop is a settlement in ZF Mgcawu District Municipality in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about 2 km west of the Orange River The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in ...

. The wines from OWC are exported, inter alia, to Europe and the USA. A number of privately owned cellars also exist in the area. The //Khara Hais region accounts for more or less 40% of South Africa's grape exports.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khara Hais Local Municipality 2016 disestablishments in South Africa Former local municipalities of South Africa Populated places disestablished in 2016 Dawid Kruiper Local Municipality