Sesfontein is a settlement in the

Kunene Region Kunene is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia. Its capital is Opuwo, its governor is Marius Sheya. The region's name comes from the Kunene River which forms the northern border with Angola. Besides the capital Opuwo, the region contains the ...

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

, situated from the regional capital

Opuwo Opuwo is the capital of the Kunene Region in north-western Namibia. The town is situated about 720 km north-northwest from the capital Windhoek, and has a population of 20,000. It is the commercial hub of the Kunene Region. Economy and inf ...

. It is the district capital of

Sesfontein Constituency Sesfontein Constituency is an electoral constituency in the Kunene Region of Namibia. Its district capital is the settlement of Sesfontein. The constituency had a population of 7,358 in 2004. , it has 5,614 registered voters. Sesfontein Const ...

, its population is 7,358. Sesfontein derives its name from the six fountains which have their source in the vicinity. The settlement features a clinic. The most well known landmark of Sesfontein is Fort Sesfontein, erected in 1896 as a police outpost by ''

Schutztruppe (, Protection Force) was the official name of the colonial troops in the African territories of the German colonial empire from the late 19th century to 1918. Similar to other colonial armies, the consisted of volunteer European commissioned ...

'' soldiers of

Imperial Germany The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

. It was abandoned in 1914 and fell into disrepair soon thereafter. Considered a prospective National Monument in 1984 it was decided in 1989 not to list it. The fort was reconstructed in the 1990s and is now equipped to accommodate tourists. The palm trees at the fort were planted by the German police officers who manned the fort to combat weapons smuggling and elephant and rhino poaching.

References

Populated places in the Kunene Region {{Namibia-geo-stub