Nyangana is a village in the Ndiyona Constituency in

Kavango East Kavango East is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia. Its capital is Rundu, its governor is Bonifatius Wakudumo. The region was created in 2013 when the Kavango Region was split into Kavango East and Kavango West. The only self-governing sett ...

Region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

of north-eastern

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 east of

Rundu Rundu is the capital and the largest city of the Kavango-East Region in northern Namibia. It lies on the border with Angola on the banks of the Kavango River, about above sea level. Rundu's population is growing rapidly. The 2001 census counted ...

. The Roman Catholic mission of Nyangana is located in the village.

History

The settlement is named after Nyangana,

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

of the

Gciriku Gciriku is a traditional Kavango people, Kavango kingdom in what is today Namibia. Its people speak the Gciriku language. The Gciriku (Rugciriku: ''vaGciriku'') are one of the many ethnic groups in Namibia with a population of 50,529 as of 2023. T ...

tribe. Catholic fathers of the organization

Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) is a missionary religious congregation in the Catholic Church. It was founded on January 25, 1816, by Eugène de Mazenod, a French priest later recognized as a Catholic saint. The congregation wa ...

founded the Nyangana Mission in 1910, after they had been forced to leave the Andara Mission in 1908, as a result of a misfiring of a gun. King Libebe had turned hostile to the missionaries there. Nyangana was founded as a mission station by father

Joseph Gotthardt Joseph Gotthardt (16 December 1880 – 3 August 1963) was a Catholic missionary and later Bishop and Archbishop in South-West Africa (today Namibia). He was the first to set up missions in the Kavango Region and in Ovamboland, became the first Vic ...

during the seventh Catholic mission expedition to Kavango. The previous six expeditions had not been successful. Nyangana became the

bridgehead In military strategy, a bridgehead (or bridge-head) is the strategically important area of ground around the end of a bridge or other place of possible crossing over a body of water which at time of conflict is sought to be defended or taken over ...

position for the Catholics in Kavango. Even Andara was founded soon, in 1913, by Gotthardt. Gotthardt later became the Archbishop of

South West Africa South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...

Nyangana today

Within the village, there are one Combined School and a private Roman Catholic hospital. The hospital was founded in 1936 by German sisters of the

Order of Saint Benedict The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

Tutzing Tutzing is a Municipalities of Germany, municipality in the district of Starnberg (district), Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany, on the west bank of the Starnberger See. Just 40 km south-west of Munich and with good views of the Alps, the town wa ...

, this was then the only hospital for the whole Kavango Region. The village features a hotel and a Youth Center. The vegetation type is thorn bush dominated by

acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Austral ...

trees.

Notable people

* John Mutorwa, Namibian Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry since 2010John Mutorwa
at Namibia Institute for Democracy

References

Populated places in Kavango East Catholic missions in Kavango {{namibia-geo-stub