Kathu is a town in South Africa, and the iron ore capital of the Northern Cape province. Its name means "town under the trees", after the Camel Thorn forest it is situated in. The phrase "the town under the trees" was coined by an engineer working in the town in the early 1990 as part of a tourist marketing drive, together with the accompanying graphic.
It was intended to be a marketing slogan. The meaning of the word "Kathu" has anecdotically been attributed to a porridge brewed by the local population from the powder found in the pods of the Camel Thorn trees.
The town and the accompanying industrial area of Sishen came into being because of iron ore mining activity in the Kalahari — it has one of the five largest open-cast iron ore mining operations in the world. The giant ore trucks bears about 220t of ore each load. Some of the world's longest ore trains travel through harsh territory on the Sishen-Saldanha railway to offload their cargo at Saldanha Bay. Kumba Iron Ore Ltd is the principal mine operator in Kathu.
Kathu has a golf course and a small, well stocked game reserve also adjoins the town.
Kathu has a well established sporting complex including Tennis, swimming and Golf. One of the tennis courts in Kathu is named after veteran tennis player Herta Hegewisch.
Kathu is perfectly in between Upington and Vryburg with about a 2 hour drive to each. Kimberley is a 3 hour drive away.
Kathu was started in the late 60's early 70's
Coordinates: 27,42 23,03
Kuruman
Kuruman is a town with 12,701 inhabitants in Northern Cape province of South Africa, famous for its scenic beauty and the Oog (Eye), a geological feature bringing water from deep underground to the surface in the Kalahari Desert.
The Kuruman River (which is dry except for flash floods after heavy rain (see wadi)), is named after it.
Kuruman was a London Missionary Society mission station founded by Robert Moffat in 1821 and the place where David Livingstone arrived for his first position as a missionary in 1841.
The Kalahari Meerkat Project, made famous by the television series Meerkat Manor, is located nearby.
Kuruman is home to famous author and Sanusi or Zulu traditional healer, Credo Mutwa.
Kuruman is located along the border that bounds the northern Cape from the North West Province and is a local town for most communities surrounding the town, including those that live in the North West Province.
Kuruman has relatively mild weather patterns compared to other Northern Cape towns, such as Upington and Springbok, and is surrounded by more vegetation as compared to the Upington and Springbok, which are surrounded by desertic environments.
The local people in Kuruman mainly speak Tswana and Afrikaans. The demographics of Kuruman are composed of mainly African people, Coloured and Afrikaans people respectively.
