Colleen Bawn is a town in

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

Location

Colleen Bawn is located in

Gwanda District Gwanda District is located in Matabeleland South province of Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between th ...

, in

Matabeleland South Province Matabeleland South is a province in southwestern Zimbabwe. With a population of 683,893 as of the 2012 Zimbabwean census. It is the country's least populated province after Matabeleland North.Matabeleland South and Matabeleland North were es ...

, in southwest Zimbabwe. It is approximately , by road, east of

Gwanda Gwanda is a town in Zimbabwe. It is the capital of the province of Matabeleland South, one of the ten administrative provinces in the country. It is also the district capital of Gwanda District, one of the seven administrative districts in th ...

, the provincial and district headquarters. This is about , by road, southeast of

Bulawayo Bulawayo (, ; ) is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council claimed it to be about ...

, the nearest large city. This location lies on Highway A-6, the main road between Bulawayo and

Beitbridge Beitbridge is a border town in the province of Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe. The name also refers to the border post and bridge spanning the Limpopo River, which forms the political border between South Africa and Zimbabwe. The border on the S ...

, at the international border with the

Republic of 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 ...

. The coordinates of the town are:21° 0' 0.00"S, 29° 12' 36.00"E (Latitude:21.0000; Longitude:29.2100). Colleen Bawn lies at an average elevation of , above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

Overview

Colleen Bawn is supplied with water from ''Geelong Weir'' on the Mzingwane River, fed by releases of water from ''Silalabuhwa Dam'', on the tributary

Insiza River The Insiza River is the principal tributary of the Mzingwane River in Zimbabwe. It rises near Fort Rixon, Insiza, Insiza District, and flows into the Mzingwane River near West Nicholson. Hydrology The upper reaches of the Insiza are ephemera ...

. The town grew up around the ''Colleen Bawn'' gold mine. The prospector who pegged claim to the mine in 1895, named it after an Irish girl with whom he had been acquainted. The mine was opened in 1905 but after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

became the focal mineral in the area. The limestone is mined by ''Pretoria Portland Cement'', who operate a cement factory on the site and have been responsible for recent growth in the town.

Population

According to the 1982 Population Census, Colleen Bawn had a population of 1,427. In 2004, the population of the town was estimated at 2,545. As of 2020, the population of the town was estimated at 2,492 inhabitants.

Economy

The Pretoria Portland Cement company, is planning to construct a 32 megawatts solar power plant at the location of its cement manufacturing factory in Colleen Bawn. 16 megawatts of the output of Colleen Bawn Solar Power Station will be consumed by the cement factory, and the remainder will be sold to the Zimbabwean national electricity grid.

References

External links

Overview of Pretoria Portland Cement
{{Gwanda District Gwanda District Populated places in Matabeleland South Province