Stone-Age artifacts found in the region confirm that Khoisan People knew the area centuries before Europeans arrived.
The Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias found ‘Little Bay’, or Angra Pequena in 1883. A German merchant from Bremen, Adolf Luderitz, landed at Angra Pequena. In 1884 this land became part of the protectorate of the German Empire, marking the beginning of German colonial rule in Namibia, referred to then as Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika. The town is renown for its old-world charm and distinctly German colonial architecture.
Kolmanskop
Namibia's most famous ghost town, Kolmanskop, is situated in the Sperrgebiet about 10 km inland from Lüderitz. In 1908 the railway worker Zacharias Lewala found a sparkling stone amongst the sand he was shoveling away from the railway line near Kolmanskop. August Stauch, his supervisor, was convinced it was a diamond.
When this was confirmed, the news spread like wildfire, sparking a frantic diamond rush and causing fortune hunters to converge in droves on Kolmanskop. It soon became a bustling little centre with all the amenities of a European town - butchery, bakery, furniture factory, soda water and lemonade production plant, four-skittle alley, a public playground and even a swimming pool. The development of Kolmanskop reached its pinnacle in the twenties.
The lifestyles, modes of dress and social attitudes of its inhabitants reflected those of Europeans of that era. At this time approximately 300 German adults, 40 children and 800 Owambo contract workers lived in the town. In spite of, or probably because of, the isolation and bleakness of the surrounding desert, Kolmanskop developed into a lively little haven of German culture, offering entertainment and recreation to suit the requirements of the affluent colonialists.
Large, elegant houses were built, and the well-equipped hospital boasted Southern Africa's first X-ray machine. However, when richer diamond deposits were discovered further south, operations were moved to Oranjemund. Within a span of 40 years, Kolmanskop lived, flourished and died. Today the ghost town's crumbling ruins bear little resemblance to its former glory.
The stately homes, their grandeur now scoured and demolished by the wind, are gradually becoming enveloped by encroaching sand dunes.
In 1980 the mining company CDM (now Namdeb) restored a number of the buildings and established a museum for tourist viewing.
