A camptown, in the country of
Lesotho
Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, t ...
, refers to a district capital for one of the ten
districts of Lesotho. The largest camptown is the city of
Maseru in
Maseru District
Maseru is a Districts of Lesotho, district of Lesotho. Maseru is also the name of the district's capital city, capital, and is the only city in the district and also the capital of the country. It is the largest urban area in the country, and the ...
. Camptowns are usually commerce hubs for the district and are the location for the central government offices for the district. Camptowns usually take the same name as the district in which they are located. For example, as mentioned the camptown for Maseru is Maseru but also the camptown for
Thaba-Tseka District
Thaba-Tseka is a Districts of Lesotho, district of Lesotho. Thaba-Tseka is also the name of the district's capital or Camptown (Lesotho), camptown, which is the only town in the district. In the east, Thaba-Tseka borders on the KwaZulu-Natal Provin ...
is
Thaba-Tseka. The exceptions to this rule are
Berea District whose capital is called
Teyateyaneng,
Quthing District whose capital is called
Moyeni and
Leribe District whose capital is most often called
Hlotse.
It presumably derives from the 19th century police camps, then (now archaic) in Sesotho ''likampo''. Official colonial government terminology was ''government reserve'', which prosaically became ''urban area'' post-independence.
References
Subdivisions of Lesotho
Types of administrative division
{{Lesotho-geo-stub