Damaraland

Republic of Damaraland
Republiek van Damaraland
Republik Damaraland
Bantustan

1980–1989


Flag

Location of Damaraland (green) within South West Africa (grey).
Capital Khorixas
Languages Khoekhoe
Herero
English
Afrikaans
German
Political structure Bantustan
History
   Self-government 1980
   Re-integrated into Namibia May 1989
Currency Namibian dollar

Damaraland was a name given to the north-central part of what later became Namibia, inhabited by the Damaras. It was bounded roughly by Ovamboland in the north, the Namib Desert in the west, the Kalahari Desert in the east, and Windhoek in the south.

In the 1970s the name Damaraland was revived for a bantustan in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing homeland for the Damara people. A centrally administered local government was created in 1980. The bantustan Damaraland was situated on the western edge of the territory that had been known as Damaraland in the 19th century.

Damaraland, like other homelands in South West Africa, was abolished in May 1989 at the start of the transition to independence.

The name Damaraland predates South African control of Namibia, and was described as "the central portion of German South-West Africa" in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.[1]

Rugged Landscape of Damaraland

See also

References

  1.  "Damaraland". Encyclopædia Britannica 7 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 783.

External links


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