Photos of Northern Cape, South Africa’s largest and most sparsely populated province

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Northern Cape, South Africa’s largest and most sparsely populated province

Created in 1994 from the northwestern part of the giant Cape Province, the Northern Cape is dominated by the Karoo Basin with a mostly arid to semi-arid climate. Its capital is Kimberley, known for its 19th-century diamond mines that made a fortune for Cecil Rhodes, who established the De Beers diamond company in 1888. Kuruman is 236 kilometres by road via Danielskuil through an arid landscape and is known as Oasis of the Kalahari due to the Eye of Kuruman: a spring bringing water from deep down. Robert Moffat, a missionary from the London Missionary Society, built his church here; it was completed in 1838.

Between Hanover and Richmond
 
Mining tower, Kimberley
 
Boys of Danielskuil
 
Man of Danielskuil
 
Shops, Danielskuil
 
Windmills near Wonderwerk Cave
 
Moffat Mission Station
 
Eye of Kuruman
 
Evening sky near Olifantshoek
 
Cannibalist Desert Grasshoppers
 
Men in Upington
 
Men in Upington
 
San man
 
Settlement near Upington
 
Huts in Ses Brugge
 
Huts in Ses Brugge
 
Orange river in Keimoes
 
Boys of Kakamas
 
Orange river, Aughrabies Falls
 
Aughrabies Falls
 
Aughrabies Falls
 
Kokerboom
 
Alpina Vries
 
Children of Aughrabies
 
Children of Aughrabies
 
Children of Aughrabies
 
Boys along the road
 
Between Kakamas and Keimoes
 
Girls and boy, Keimoes
 
Between Grondneus and Swartmodder
 
View to Noenieput
 
Sociable weaver bird nest
 
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
 
Struis se Dam
 
Impala, Kalahari Gemsbok NP
 
Gemsbok, Kalahari Gemsbok NP
 
Impala, Kalahari Gemsbok NP
 
Gnu, Kalahari Gemsbok NP
 
Impala and gemsbok, Kalahari Gemsbok NP
 
Ostriches, Kalahari Gemsbok NP
 
Orange River at Vioolsdrif
 
View to Steinkopf
 
Shop in Steinkopf
 
Huts in Steinkopf
 
Hotel and shop, Springbok
 
Hotel and shop, Springbok
 
Road, Namaqualand
 
View to Garies
 

In the far northwest is the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park that is shared with Botswana. The spectacular Augrabies Falls on the Orange River is south of there, a National Park. Its name comes from the Khoikhoi (Khoekhoe) people who named it Ankoerebis, ‘place of great noise’. The region along the west coast, extending into Namibia, is known as Namaqualand and refers to the land of the Nama, the largest group of Khoi people, who traditionally speak their language with its distinct “clicks”.

About 68% of the population speak Afrikaans as their first language, the highest of any South African province. The majority of people could be classified, in the apartheid days, as Coloured. Setswana speakers make up 33% of the population, and some people self-identify as San (formerly called Bushmen), who still may retain their languages, but no longer live from hunting. The provincial motto is “Sa kǁʔa: ǃaīsi ʔuīsi” (‘Strive for a better life’); it is in the Nǀu or !Auni language, a now extinct Khoisan language of the Nǁnǂe or ǂKhomani San people. One of the last people who could speak it was the late Ms Elsie Vaalbooi of Rietfontein, who gave the phrase in 1997.