Kolmanskop
Sign in to saveKolmanskop (Afrikaans for "Coleman's peak", ) is a ghost town in the Namib in southern Namibia, inland from the port town of Lüderitz. It was named after a transport driver named Johnny Coleman who, during a sand storm, abandoned his ox wagon on a small incline opposite the settlement. Once a small but very rich mining village, it is now a popular tourist destination run by Namdeb, a joint firm owned by the Namibian government and De Beers.
Weather now
cached 15h ago17°overcast clouds
36% 0.7 m/s OpenWeatherMap
Place details
- Locality
- Lüderitz
- Region
- ǁKharas Region
- Country
- Namibia
- Population
- 0
via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames
Key facts
- Settlement.name
- Kolmanskop
- Settlement.settlement_type
- Town
- Settlement.image_skyline
- Kolmanskop Ghost Town.jpg
- Settlement.imagesize
- 250px
- Settlement.image_caption
- An aerial view of Kolmanskop
- Settlement.pushpin_map
- Namibia
- Settlement.pushpin_label_position
- bottom
- Settlement.pushpin_mapsize
- 250
- Settlement.pushpin_map_caption
- Location in Namibia
- Settlement.subdivision_type
- Country
- Settlement.subdivision_type1
- Region
- Settlement.subdivision_name1
- ǁKaras Region
- Settlement.population_as_of
Key dates
- Inception
- 1908
- Dissolved
- 1956
via Wikidata · CC0
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- ghost town
- Country
- Namibia
- Located in
- Karas Region
- Image
- 01Kolmannskuppe.jpg
Show 1 more fact
- P12749
- Q4894
via Wikidata · CC0
Article
9 sectionsContents
- History
- Foundation and peak
- Decline
- In popular culture
- Literature
- Gallery
- See also
- References
- External links
Kolmanskop (Afrikaans for "Coleman's peak", ) is a ghost town in the Namib in southern Namibia, inland from the port town of Lüderitz. It was named after a transport driver named Johnny Coleman who, during a sand storm, abandoned his ox wagon on a small incline opposite the settlement. Once a small but very rich mining village, it is now a popular tourist destination run by Namdeb, a joint firm owned by the Namibian government and De Beers.
==History== ===Foundation and peak=== In 1908, in what was then German South-West Africa, a railroad worker Zacharias Lewala found a diamond while working in this area and showed it to his supervisor, the German railway inspector August Stauch. Realizing the area was rich in diamonds, German miners settled, and soon after the German Empire declared a large area as a "Sperrgebiet" (German, meaning "prohibited area"), starting to exploit the diamond field.