Swartruggens is a small farming

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

North West Province North West is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Mahikeng. The province is located to the west of the major population centre of Gauteng and south of Botswana. History North West was incorporated after the end of Apartheid in 1994, an ...

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

that was established in 1875.

Location

The town is located by the Elands River, 69 km from the town of

Zeerust Zeerust is a commercial town situated in Ngaka Modiri Molema district North West Province, South Africa. It lies in the Marico valley, approximately 240 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg. It lies on the N4, the main road link between South ...

, 56 km west of the city of

Rustenburg Rustenburg (; , Afrikaans and Dutch: ''City of Rest'') is a city at the foot of the Magaliesberg mountain range. Rustenburg is the most populous city in North West province, South Africa (549,575 in 2011 and 626,522 in the 2016 census). In 2017 ...

and 34 km north-west of Koster. It takes its name 'Swartruggens' from a series of hills there, formerly known as ''Zwartruggens'', a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

name for 'black ridges'.

History

The town of Swartruggens was founded in 1875 on the farm Brakfontein. After the

Siege of Mafeking The siege of Mafeking was a 217-day siege battle for the town of Mafeking (now called Mafikeng) in South Africa during the Second Boer War from October 1899 to May 1900. The siege received considerable attention as Lord Edward Cecil, the son of ...

, during the

Second 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 South ...

, one of the supply depots established by

Robert Baden-Powell Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, ( ; (Commonly pronounced by others as ) 22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941) was a British Army officer, writer, founder and first Chief Scout of the worl ...

as he moved towards Pretoria was in Swartruggens. A cemetery for British war dead from the Second Anglo-Boer War is located in the town.

References

External links

The Siege of the Elandsriver Staging Post 4 - 16 August 1900
Populated places in the Kgetlengrivier Local Municipality Populated places established in 1875 {{NorthWestZA-geo-stub