Place:Swakopmund, Erongo, Namibia

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Swakopmund is a city on the coast of western Namibia, west of the Namibian capital Windhoek via the B2 main road. It is the capital of the Erongo administrative district. The town has 44,725 inhabitants and covers of land.^[1] The city is situated in the Namib Desert and is the fourth largest population centre in Namibia.

Swakopmund is a beach resort and an example of German colonial architecture. It was founded in 1892 as the main harbour for German South West Africa. As of the 1970s, German influences remained evident, including German street names, a German daily newspaper, and the German language being spoken by some residents, prompting The New York Times to describe it as "more German than Germany". A 2008 New York Times article describes the town as having "the dislocating feel of a Baltic Sea resort set in the tropics."

Buildings in the city include the Altes Gefängnis, a prison designed by Heinrich Bause in 1909. The Woermannhaus, built in 1906 with a prominent tower (Damara tower), is now a public library. Attractions in Swakopmund include a Swakopmund Museum, the National Marine Aquarium, a crystal gallery, and spectacular sand dunes near Langstrand south of the Swakop River. Outside the city, the Rossmund Desert Golf Course is one of only five all-grass desert golf courses in the world. Nearby is a farm that offers camel rides to tourists and the Martin Luther steam locomotive, dating from 1896 and abandoned in the desert.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Etymology

The Herero called the place Otjozondjii. The name of the town is derived from the Nama word Tsoakhaub ("excrement opening") describing the Swakop River in flood carrying items in its riverbed, including dead animals, into the Atlantic Ocean. However, Professor Peter Raper, Honorary Professor: Linguistics, at the University of the Free State points out that the name for Swakopmund is based on the San language, specifically from xwaka (rhinoceros) and ob (river).

The German settlers changed it to Swachaub, and when in 1896 the district was officially proclaimed, the version Swakopmund (German: Mouth of the Swakop) was introduced.

Until World War I

Captain Curt von François founded Swakopmund in 1892 as the main harbour for the Imperial German colony—the natural deep sea harbour at Walvis Bay belonged to the British. The founding date was on August 8 when the crew of gunboat erected two beacons on the shore. Swakopmund was chosen for its availability of fresh water and a relatively easy connection into the centre of the South West African territory, particularly the Otjimbingwe and Windhoek. Other sites such as Sandwich Harbour and Cape Cross were found unsuitable due to dune belts that block the way to the hinterland.

The Swakop site did, however, not offer any natural protection to ships lying off the coast, a geographical feature not often found along Namibia's coast. When the first 120 Schutztruppe soldiers and 40 settlers were offloaded at Swakopmund in 1893, they had to dig caves into the sand for shelter. The offloading was done by Kru tribesmen from Liberia who used special boats. Woermann-Linie, the operator of the shipping route to Germany, employed 600 Kru at that time.^[2]

Swakopmund quickly became the main port for imports and exports for the whole territory, and was one of six towns which received municipal status in 1909. Many governmental departments for German South West Africa had offices in Swakopmund. During the Herero Wars a concentration camp for Herero people was operated in town. Inmates were forced into slave labour; approximately 2,000 Herero died.

Soon, the harbour created by the "Mole" (breakwater) silted up, and in 1905, work was started on a wooden jetty, but in the long run this was inadequate. In 1914, construction of a steel jetty was therefore commenced. Trading and shipping companies founded branches in Swakopmund.

Until Namibian Independence

Early in World War I in 1915, German South West Africa was taken over by the Union of South Africa. With this, the logistic and political barriers disappeared to use the harbour in Walvis Bay for South West Africa. In Swakopmund all harbour activities ceased, central government services disappeared, the jetty became a pedestrian walkway. Businesses closed down, the number of inhabitants diminished, and the town fell in decline.

However, Swakopmund had been guaranteed a lifeline in a 1923 treaty in London negotiating the aftermath of World War I. Its moderate climate and location on the Atlantic made it suitable as a holiday resort for the white population of the territory, and the town was re-shaped into a tourism destination. Having lost its military importance, Swakopmund was used for recreation even during World War II, and in the 1940s and 1950s it was expanded to serve more and more tourists.

With the opening of the Rössing uranium mine in 1976, Swakopmund changed its shape once again. While this mine to the east eventually got its own town built, Arandis, logistics and workers' accommodation were first supplied by Swakopmund.

Since 1990

After Namibian independence from South Africa in 1990 many street names were changed from their original German, or in some cases, Afrikaans names, to honour Namibians, predominantly Namibians of black heritage. For example, in 2001, then-president of Namibia Sam Nujoma renamed the main street (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße) Sam Nujoma Avenue in honour of himself.

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