Sight · Grootfontein
Hoba Meteorite
The largest known meteorite found in one piece, a slab of iron and nickel of more than 60 tonnes lying where it fell on a farm west of Grootfontein, now a national heritage site.
The Hoba meteorite is the biggest known meteorite still in one piece, a flat block of iron and nickel weighing more than 60 tonnes. It lies on the farm Hoba West, about 24 km west of Grootfontein in the Otjozondjupa Region, and it has never been moved. It fell less than 80,000 years ago and is thought to be somewhere between 190 and 410 million years old.
What to expect
There is no crater. The meteorite seems to have hit the ground slowly enough to stay in one piece, and it sat buried until 1920, when the farmer, Jacobus Hermanus Brits, struck it with his plough. Today it is ringed by a circular stone seating area, so you can sit and look at it from all sides. It measures about 2.7 by 2.7 metres and less than a metre thick, so it is smaller than the weight suggests.
The visitor centre went up in 1987, after the farm’s owner gave the meteorite and the ground around it to the state. The name is said to come from a Khoekhoegowab word meaning gift.
Practical details
- Location: farm Hoba West, about 24 km west of Grootfontein.
- Managed by the National Heritage Council of Namibia. Visit Namibia lists the site’s phone as +264 81 829 3473 and email as info@nhc-nam.org.
- We have not found published opening hours, so phone ahead if you are arriving late in the day.
Good to know
It was declared a national monument in 1955, and in 1979 the protected area was set at 25 by 25 metres with the meteorite in the middle. Before the visitor centre opened, people hacked bits off it as souvenirs. One piece cut off with a hand saw in 1968 was sold at auction in Los Angeles in 2021. Brits’s original report on the find can be seen at the museum in Grootfontein.
Last updated 7 October 2026. Sources: National Heritage Council of Namibia, Namibia Tourism Board (Visit Namibia), Wikipedia, Wikivoyage.
