The Windhoek Guide - Your Guide to Namibia's Capital

The history of Windhoek started early. The area around Windhoek was populated by the San people thousands of years ago. The hot springs were the reason for the Orlaam to settle at the area of the today's suburb of Klein Windhoek.

 

In the coming years many people settled here and the first missionaries lead by Hugo Hahn and Heinrich Kleinschmidt came to the area.

 

The fist capital of the Deutsche Schutzgebiet (German Protectorate) was Otjimbingwe. However, Major Curt von Francois decided in 1890 to move the capital to Windhoek. On 18 October 1890 the modern city of Windhoek was founded by building the Alte Feste (Old Fort), nowadays the National Museum of Namibia. During that time the three castles on the hills around Windhoek were constructed. In 1916 Windhoek already had more than 11,000 inhabitants. The Kaiserstrasse (Emperor Street; since 1990 Independence Avenue) was the centre of the town. In 1915 South African troops took over the city and the whole "Schutzgebiet".

 

Around 1928 the system of racial segregation began with moving all black inhabitants of Windhoek to new suburbs in the north. In 1959 the situation escalated and 11 black people were killed by the South African police force. This was the turn around point in Namibian politics and many high-class blacks decided to fight for their independence. They were lead by Sam Nujoma, the founding father of the nation and first president of Namibia. Still the apartheid system was in place and most of the black people were moved out of suburbs like Klein Windhoek to the new suburb of Katutura, "the place where we do not want to live".

 

With independence of Namibia in 1990 Windhoek became the capital of Namibia.