Windhoek

Windhoek is the capital of Namibia, in the central highlands of the country between the Auas and Eros mountains. Jonker Afrikaner, a Nama leader who settled at its hot springs, is said to have named the place after the Winterhoek farm in the Cape where his family came from.

The springs drew Nama and Herero herders, and Rhenish missionaries built a station there in the 1840s. Curt von François laid out a German colonial town in 1890 and began the Alte Feste, a fort with white walls and corner towers that now houses a museum. South Africa ruled the territory for most of the 20th century, and Windhoek became the capital of independent Namibia in 1990. Christuskirche, a Lutheran church of sandstone with a slender clock tower, was finished for the German congregation in the early 20th century.

Namibia Breweries, based in the city, brews Windhoek Lager to the German beer purity law, with only malt, hops and water. Meatco processes beef from the cattle farms of the country at its Windhoek abattoir and sells it to markets in Europe. Namdeb, the diamond company owned jointly by the government and De Beers, runs its mines on the southern coast from a head office in Windhoek.

Gibeon meteorites, iron pieces of a meteor shower that fell in the south of Namibia, are mounted on steel columns in the Post Street Mall. The Independence Memorial Museum, a gold-colored building beside Christuskirche, tells the story of the road to independence. Windhoek Karneval, a German-style carnival held each autumn since the 1950s, fills the streets with a parade of floats and music bands.