Rosh Pinah is a mining town located in southern
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
, close to the border with
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
. It is situated south of
Keetmanshoop
Keetmanshoop is a town in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia. It is named after , a German Empire, German industrialist and benefactor of the city. Keetmanshoop had a population of 27,862 people in 2023.
History
Before the colonial era, ...
in Namibia's
ǁKaras Region
The ǁKharas Region (pronounced , with a lateral click, former name Karas Region, without the click) is the southernmost, largest, and least densely populated of the 14 regions of Namibia; its capital is Keetmanshoop. The name assigned to the r ...
. West of the town lies
Diamond Area 1, the main diamond mining area of Namibia. Rosh Pinah belongs to the
Oranjemund electoral constituency. The town is connected via road to
Aus and
Oranjemund
Oranjemund (Dutch for ''"Mouth of Orange"'') is a diamond mining town in the ǁKaras Region of the extreme southwest of Namibia, on the northern bank of the Orange River mouth at the border with South Africa. It had a population of 7,736 peopl ...
.
Copper was discovered here in the 1920s, and German-born Jew
Mose Kohan discovered zinc in the nearby
Hunz Mountains in 1963. He also coined the name "Rosh Pinah" which is a Hebrew term for "cornerstone".
[Tonchi, Victor L., William A. Lindeke, and John J. Grotpeter]
"Rosh Pinah Mine"
Historical Dictionary of Namibia. 2nd edition. (2012) Toronto: The Scarecrow Press, Inc, p. 373. More significant deposits of zinc were found in 1968.
Rosh Pinah is home to two mines,
Skorpion Zinc and
Rosh Pinah mine. Both mines extract mainly
zinc
Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...
and
lead
Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...
. Like other mining towns in Namibia, the settlement was created when the first mine was opened. The Rosh Pinah mine was established in 1969 and has been in continuous operation since then.
Skorpion Zinc opened in 2001 and is the eighth-largest zinc mine in the world. It is the largest employer in town, providing 1,900 jobs.
The settlement is administered by the company RoshSkor (named after and co-owned by both mining operators) because it does not have its own local government authority and falls, like all Namibian settlements, under
its regional administration.
The town manager is Slabbert Burger. The town is economically entirely dependent on its mines which own 90% of the property and provide the vast majority of jobs. "If the mines close, Rosh Pinah will become another
Kolmanskop, as we are not sustainable as a town", Burger stated in 2019.
[ Hoeksteen Combined School and Tsau ǁKhaeb Secondary School are government schools located in town.]
External links
References
{{Authority control
Mining communities in Africa
Populated places in the ǁKaras Region
Populated places established in 1969
1969 establishments in South West Africa
Mining in Namibia
Hebrew words and phrases