HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Orapa is a
town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...
located in the Central District of
Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kal ...
. It is the site of the
Orapa diamond mine The Orapa diamond mine is the world's largest diamond mine by area. The mine is located in Orapa, a town in the Central District of Botswana about west of the city of Francistown. Orapa ("resting place for lions") is owned by Debswana, a partn ...
, the largest
diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, b ...
-producing mine in the world, and is considered to be the diamond capital of the country. Nearby is another
kimberlite Kimberlite is an igneous rock and a rare variant of peridotite. It is most commonly known to be the main host matrix for diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an diamond called the Star of S ...
mine owned by
Lucara Diamond Lucara Diamond Corp. is a diamond exploration and mining company, founded in 2009 by two Canadian mining executives, Eira Thomas, Catherine McLeod-Seltzer and Swedish-Canadian mining billionaire Lukas Lundin, operating in Southern Africa but esta ...
, thought to have very large reserves of diamonds. The town has four schools, one of which teaches in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
, serving a community containing a high proportion of immigrants. The population in 1996 was approximately 10,000 but has increased much in the last 10 years and is still increasing, due to the mining output having increased in line with development targets.Central Statistics Office, Republic of Botswana
/ref> According to the 2022 Population and Household census, the population of Orapa stood at 8,648.


See also

*
Nwetwe Pan The Ntwetwe Pan is a large salt pan within the Makgadikgadi region of Botswana. The Ntwetwe is one of three large pans within the Makgadikgadi, the other two being Nxai Pan and Sua Pan. Ntwetwe Pan is now a seasonal lake with filling occurri ...
*
Sua Pan The Sua Pan or Sowa Pan is a large natural topographic depression within the Makgadikgadi region of Botswana. It is located near the village of ''Sowa'', whose name means salt in the language of the San. The Sua salt pan is one of three large p ...


References

Populated places in Central District (Botswana) Mining communities in Africa {{Botswana-geo-stub