Editing Grootfontein (section)

==Overview==
The place was known to the [[Herero people|Herero]] under the name ''Otjivanda''.<ref>{{cite news | title=Windhoek?! Rather make that Otjomuise | url=https://www.namibian.com.na/16007/archive-read/Windhoek-Rather-make-that-Otjomuise | last=Menges | first=Werner | newspaper=[[The Namibian]] | date=12 May 2005}}</ref> In 1885, 40 [[Boer]] families from the north-west of [[South Africa]] settled at Grootfontein. Part of the [[Dorsland trek]]kers, they were heading towards [[Angola]].  When that territory fell under [[Portugal|Portuguese]] control, they turned back and established the [[Upingtonia|Republic of Upingtonia]] at Grootfontein.  Abandoned by 1887, it became the headquarters of the [[South West Africa Company]] in 1893.

In 1908 the [[Roman Catholic church]] established a [[Mission (station)|mission]] in Grootfontein as the basis of their eventually successful attempt to establish missions in [[Kavango Region|Kavango]].<ref>{{cite book |title= Sata vuotta suomalaista lähetystyötä 1859–1959. II: Suomen Lähetysseuran Afrikan työn historia |trans-title= ‘One Hundred Years of Finnish Missionary Work 1859–1959. II: The History of FMS’s Missionary Work in Africa’ |last= Peltola |first= Matti |year=1958 |publisher=The Finnish Missionary Society |location=Helsinki |page=217 }}</ref>

Like all the towns in the Otavi Triangle, Grootfontein is green in summer but drier in winter.  In spring, [[jacaranda]] and [[Royal Poinciana|flamboyant trees]] bloom in profusion. The town has an old German [[Schutztruppe]] fortress from the year 1896, which today houses a [[museum]] that expounds on the local history.  The economic mainspring of the area were for many decades the [[Berg Aukas]] and [[Abenab]] mines to the north east of the town. These produced [[zinc]] and [[vanadium]] but have since closed.  Namibia is a [[Dolomite (rock)|dolomite]] country and the [[carbonate]] deposits in the upper parts of the mine have yielded interesting [[fossil]]s of [[simian]] or [[pongoid]] creatures that lived millions of years before modern humans evolved.
[[File:Hoba Meteorite 2007.jpg|thumb|left|Hoba Meteorite 2007]]
Twenty four kilometres west of Grootfontein lies the huge [[Hoba meteorite]].  At over 60 tons, it is the largest known [[meteorite]] on Earth, as well as  the largest naturally occurring mass of iron known to exist on the planet's surface.

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