Louis Trichardt (formerly Trichardtsdorp, and Makhado from 2003 to 2014), informally shortened to LTT (), is a town in

Limpopo Limpopo () is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a ...

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 ...

. It is at the foot of Songozwi, in the

Soutpansberg The Soutpansberg (formerly Zoutpansberg), meaning "Salt Pan Mountain" in Afrikaans, is a Mountain range, range of mountains in far northern South Africa. It is located in Vhembe District Municipality, Vhembe District, Limpopo. It is named for t ...

mountain, and is the centre of the

Makhado Local Municipality Makhado Municipality (; ) is a local municipality within the Vhembe District Municipality, in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The seat is Louis Trichardt. It is named in honour of 19th-century King (Thovhele) in the Singo (or Vhasenzi) dyna ...

, which comprises 16,000 km² with a population of 270,000 (2001). Louis Trichardt is located in a fertile region where litchis,

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree '' Mangifera indica''. It originated from the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South and Southeast As ...

es and nuts are produced. The N1 National Route runs through the town. Louis Trichardt is 437 kilometres from

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

and one hour's drive from the Zimbabwean border at Beitbridge. Louis Trichardt was known for a time as Makhado, but it was changed back to Louis Trichardt. Elim, Tshikota and Madombidzha townships surround the town in all directions. It's common languages are Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans and English.

History

Like many other towns in South Africa, Louis Trichardt had its origins in

Voortrekker The Great Trek (, ) was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial adminis ...

settlement of the area. Two groups of Trekkers reached the Soutpansberg mountain range in 1836, one under the leadership of Louis Tregardt (born near Oudtshoorn, South Africa, 10 August 1783) and another under Hans van Rensburg. Van Rensburg decided to lead his group to Sofala (near current Beira),

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

, but his entire party was killed en route. Trigardt and his group stayed near the mountain, camping near what eventually became the town of Louis Trichardt. They planted crops and started exploring the area northwards in an attempt to locate Van Rensburg and his group. After spending a year in the area, they decided to head for the fort at

Delagoa Bay Delagoa is a marine ecoregion along the eastern coast of Africa. It extends along the coast of Mozambique and South Africa from the Bazaruto Archipelago (21°14’ S) to Lake St. Lucia in South Africa (28° 10' S) in South Africa's Kwazulu-Nat ...

, a journey that took them 7 months to complete, during which more than half the group perished (including Tregardt himself). Other trekkers soon settled nearby, at Schoemansdal, clashing with the

Venda people The Venḓa (VhaVenḓa or Vhangona) are a Bantu people native to Southern Africa living mostly near the South African-Zimbabwean border. The Venda language arose from interactions with Sotho-Tswana and Kalanga groups from 1400. The Venda ...

who dwelt there. The town of Trichardtsdorp was finally founded in February 1899. The Trekkers settled on the northern part of what would later become a town while the Venda people resided at the southern part, about 800 meters apart. When the Trekkers decided to build a town they moved the Venda people and constructed firms in the exact area. The people moved in different directions but most were moved to the dry lands, west of the town, that would later become known as Madombidzha, and they later stretched further west along the mountain. Their area grew over the years and was shared amongst two chiefs. The area is well known as Ha-Sinthumule/Kutama or simply Dzanani 2. Amongst the youth the name "Western" is fairly popular, as emphasizes that the area is far west of the Venda tribe. The village's names include:

Demography

According to the 2011 census, the population of Louis Trichardt consists of 25,360 people in 7,129 households. Of this population, 72.7% describe themselves as " African", 20.0% as "

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

", 5.7% as " Indian or Asian" and 1.3% as "

Coloured Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...

". 39.5% speak

Venda Venda ( ), officially the Republic of Venda (; ), was a Bantustan in northern South Africa. It was fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while, to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black hom ...

as their

first language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...

, 22.8% speak

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

, 11.7% speak English, 6.6% speak

Northern Sotho Sepedi, also known as Northern Sotho, is one of South Africa’s twelve official languages and belongs to the Bantu language family, specifically the Sotho-Tswana group. The language is spoken mainly in Limpopo Province, and to a lesser exten ...

, 6.1% speak

Tsonga Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (; born 17 April 1985) ...

and 2.6% speak

Southern Sotho Sotho (), also known as ''Sesotho'' (), Southern Sotho, or ''Sesotho sa Borwa'' is a Southern Bantu language spoken in Lesotho as its national language and South Africa where it is an official language. Like all Bantu languages, Sesotho is ...

References

External links

Louis Trichardt History
{{Authority control Populated places in the Makhado Local Municipality Populated places founded by Afrikaners

History

Demography

See also

References

External links