Aranos is a town in the

Hardap Region Hardap is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, its capital is Mariental. Hardap contains the municipality of Mariental, the towns Rehoboth and Aranos, and the self-governed villages Gibeon, Gochas, Kalkrand, Stampriet and Maltahöhe. I ...

of central

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 ...

, situated in the

Nossob River The Nossob River (also Nosob or Nossop; ''ǂnuse ǃab'', Khoikhoi for black river) is a dry river bed in eastern Namibia and the Kalahari region of South Africa and Botswana. It covers a distance of 740 km and last flooded in 1989. The riv ...

basin in the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semiarid climate, semiarid sandy savanna in Southern Africa covering including much of Botswana as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African ...

. The town had 5,493 inhabitants in 2023. The main economic activity is farming. The place normally receives an annual average rainfall of , although in the 2010/2011 rainy season were measured.

History

The original name of the settlement was Arahoab,

Khoekhoe Khoikhoi ( /ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ ''KOY-koy'') (or Khoekhoe in Namibian orthography) are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San (literally "foragers") peop ...

for ''red area''. During the

Herero Wars The Herero Wars were a series of colonial wars between the German Empire and the Herero people of German South West Africa (present-day Namibia). They took place between 1904 and 1908. Background Pre-colonial South-West Africa The Hereros we ...

, ''

Schutztruppe (, Protection Force) was the official name of the colonial troops in the African territories of the German colonial empire from the late 19th century to 1918. Similar to other colonial armies, the consisted of volunteer European commissioned a ...

'' units of

Imperial Germany The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

colonial forces were stationed here since March 1908. The volume of postal services to the military led to the opening of a post office in that year. After the war, in 1911, the military office was closed again. Postal services, however, continued until the Germans lost control of the colony in 1915. To avoid confusion with the village of

Aroab Aroab is a List of villages and settlements in Namibia, village in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia. It had 2,651 inhabitants in 2023. Geography Aroab is situated about south-east of Keetmanshoop on the edge of the Kalahari desert; the av ...

further south, Arahoab was renamed Aranos in the 1960s. Aranos is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of Arahoab and Nossob River.

Politics

Aranos is the administrative centre of Aranos Constituency since 2013. Before that it belonged to the Mariental Rural constituency. Aranos was proclaimed a village in 1958. It was governed by a 5-seat village council until it was upgraded to "town" status in 2010. There is now a town council that has seven seats. In the 2004 local authority elections

SWAPO The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO ; , SWAVO; , SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia (formerly South West Africa). Founded in 1960, it has been ...

won the town council election with 733 votes and gained three seats. One seat each were obtained by the

Democratic Turnhalle Alliance The Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), formerly Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), is an amalgamation of political parties in Namibia, registered as one singular party for representation purposes. In coalition with the United Democratic Front ...

(DTA, 234 votes) and the Republican Party (RP, 182 votes). SWAPO also won most votes (546) in the 2010 local authority election. The

(DTA) finished in 2nd place with 205 votes, followed by the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP, 186),

SWANU The South West Africa National Union (SWANU) is a Namibian political party founded in 1959. Most of its members came from the Herero people, while fellow independence movement SWAPO was mostly an Ovambo people, Ovambo party. Structure and le ...

(17) and the

Congress of Democrats The Congress of Democrats (CoD) is a Namibian opposition party without representation in the National Assembly and was led by Ben Ulenga from 2004 to 2015. It was established in 1999, prior to that year's general elections, and started off w ...

(15). SWAPO also won the 2015 election, gaining four seats in the town council (598 votes). The RDP gained two seats (246 votes), and the DTA one (194). The 2020 local authority election was won by the newly formed

Landless People's Movement The Landless People's Movement is an independent social movement in South Africa. It consisted of rural people and people living in shack settlements in cities. The Landless People's Movement boycotted parliamentary elections and had a history ...

(LPM) which scored well all over Hardap. LPM gained 745 votes and three seats in the town council, followed by SWAPO with two seats (465 votes), the likewise new

Independent Patriots for Change The Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) is a political party in Namibia. It was founded by Panduleni Itula in August 2020. As an independent presidential candidate in the 2019 election, Itula won the best result of a losing candidate in a ...

(IPC) with one seat (283 votes) and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM, the successor of the DTA), also with one seat and 90 votes. The current mayor is Marline Claasen.

People

Aranos is the birthplace of former

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

member

Jurie Viljoen Johannes Jurie Viljoen (born 14 May 1942 in Aranos, Hardap Region) is a Namibian politician. Viljoen was a member of the 4th National Assembly of Namibia from 2005 to 2010. From 2005 to 2010, Viljoen was the only representative of the Monitor Ac ...

and human rights activist Pauline Dempers.Pauline Dempers
Namibia Institute for Democracy

Gallery

Aranos High School.jpg, Aranos High School (2017)

References

{{Reflist, 30em Towns in Namibia Populated places in the Hardap Region Populated places established in 1958 1958 establishments in South West Africa