Phalaborwa
Province
Phalaborwa is a town in the Limpopo province in the north- east of South Africa and the administrative seat of the municipality of Ba - Phalaborwa. 2011, it had 13,108 inhabitants. The city is mainly known for mining and tourism.
The name comes from the term pala bora of as much as, better than the south ' means. The Sotho, who moved here from the south, named the place.
Location
Phalaborwa is located east of Tzaneen, close to the Kruger National Park in a predominantly rural structured region of South Africa.
The town has several suburbs (former townships ). The largest are Namakgale (2011: 36 365 inhabitants) and Lulekani (2011: 14 464 inhabitants).
Traffic
A railway line runs south-west approach and ends here. The main road links with other sites in South Africa is regional road R40 to Barberton continue to Swaziland and the R71 to Polokwane. In the Kruger National Park, the H9 leads.
The city has a domestic airport, the Kruger Park Gateway Airport.
Economy
Well-known companies are there, the Palabora Mining Company, which operates the mining of copper ores since 1965 and the Foskor Ltd.. , Which was founded in 1951 at this location by the Industrial Development Corporation for the recovery of phosphate raw materials for South African agriculture.
For this reason, an annular olivine - magnetite -apatite deposit, here locally and commercially called Phoscorite to use a carbonatite core complex in the open pit. At the core of Karbonatitlagerstätte is the most interesting for the extraction of copper mineralization of chalcopyrite, bornite, chalcocite and Valleriit. Another outer ring is composed of a pyroxene - olivine - vermiculite Pegmatoid whose Vermiculitgehalt montane is economically interesting. Before building the state company Foskor ( phosphates. Development Corporation Ltd. ) were here already the Transvaal Ore Company and the Phalaborwa Phosphate and Vermiculite Company deals with the extraction of raw materials. The majority of phosphate concentrates produced here come by rail via Komatipoort and Swaziland for further processing and partly as an export to Richards Bay. In the phosphate mining more than 1,100 people were employed permanently in 2010.
Also located in Phalaborwa by the mining operation, the largest man- hole.