Mahikeng

Province

Mahikeng (until 2010 Mafikeng, formerly Mafeking ) is part of the municipality in the district Ngaka Modiri Molema Mafikeng. It is the capital of South Africa's North West Province. The present district of Mmabatho was the capital of the former homelands Bophuthatswana. The city had 2011 15.117 inhabitants. Mahikeng situated on the river Molopo and is accessible by the National Road N18.

Name

The city was renamed in Mahikeng 2010, as the place was called until 1885. The former name Mafikeng comes from the Tswana word meaning " place of stones ".

History

Before the arrival of the British, the area was inhabited by the Tswana tribe of Barolong. In the 1880s, the city was founded by British mercenaries. They gave the city its name botched Mafeking, for a long time was the official name of the city.

In the Second Boer War in 1899 Mafeking was besieged 217 days by the Boers. During the siege of 212 people were killed or injured. During the siege of the city gathered Colonel Robert Baden- Powell, the commander of the defending British troops, experiences, eventually resulting in the founding of the Scout Movement. Mafeking was the extraterritorial capital of the Protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana to it as 1965 became independent.

Mmabatho, the former capital of the homelands Bophuthatswana, since the reunification of the Homelands South Africa with an area of ​​Mahikeng.

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