Grootfontein (, named after the nearby

hot springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

) is a city with 26,839 inhabitants in the

Otjozondjupa Region Otjozondjupa is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia. Its capital is Otjiwarongo. The region further contains the municipalities of Okahandja and Grootfontein and the towns Okakarara and Otavi. , Otjozondjupa had 97,945 registered voters. Geogr ...

of central

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

. It is one of the three towns in the Otavi Triangle, situated on the B8 national road that leads from

Otavi Otavi is a town with 10,000 inhabitants in the Otjozondjupa Region of Namibia. Situated 360 km north of Windhoek, it is the district capital of the Otavi electoral constituency. Geography The towns of Otavi, Tsumeb (to the north) and Gr ...

to the Caprivi Strip.

Overview

The place was known to the Herero under the name ''Otjivanda''. In 1885, 40

Boer Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...

families from the north-west of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

settled at Grootfontein. Part of the Dorsland trekkers, they were heading towards

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

. When that territory fell under Portuguese control, they turned back and established the Republic of Upingtonia at Grootfontein. Abandoned by 1887, it became the headquarters of the South West Africa Company in 1893. In 1908 the

Roman Catholic church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

established a mission in Grootfontein as the basis of their eventually successful attempt to establish missions in Kavango. Like all the towns in the Otavi Triangle, Grootfontein is green in summer but drier in winter. In spring,

jacaranda ''Jacaranda'' is a genus of 49 species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas while cultivated around the world. The generic name is also used as the common name. The species ' ...

and flamboyant trees bloom in profusion. The town has an old German

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 a ...

fortress from the year 1896, which today houses a

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

that expounds on the local history. The economic mainspring of the area were for many decades the Berg Aukas and Abenab mines to the north east of the town. These produced

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

and

vanadium Vanadium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an ...

but have since closed. Namibia is a dolomite country and the

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid, (), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word "carbonate" may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate group ...

deposits in the upper parts of the mine have yielded interesting

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s of

simian The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder (Simiiformes ) of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders New World monkey, Platyrrhini (New World mon ...

or pongoid creatures that lived millions of years before modern humans evolved. Hoba Meteorite 2007

Twenty four kilometres west of Grootfontein lies the huge Hoba meteorite. At over 60 tons, it is the largest known

meteorite A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...

on Earth, as well as the largest naturally occurring mass of iron known to exist on the planet's surface.

Economy and infrastructure

Transport

Grootfontein is a

railhead {{Short pages monitor {{Authority control Populated places in the Otjozondjupa Region Cities in Namibia Capitals of former nations Populated places founded by Afrikaners Hot springs of Namibia Catholic missions in Namibia