Town · Karas, Namibia
Oranjemund
Former closed diamond town at the mouth of the Orange River, open to visitors only since 2017, with oryx on the lawns, a shipwreck museum room and a bridge to South Africa.
Short answer
Oranjemund is in Karas, Namibia. This page lists 3 places to stay, 3 places to eat and drink and 1 sight.
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- Places to stay
- 3
- Eat and drink
- 3
- Sights
- 1
- Where
- Karas, Namibia28.55°S 16.43°E
In and around Oranjemund
7 places listedWhere to stay in Oranjemund 3
- 28.55°S 16.42°EGuest houseOryx guesthouse+264 81 820 6095
- 28.56°S 16.49°EHotelOp My Stoep
- 28.56°S 16.42°EGuest houseTom's Cabin
Sights 1
- The Jasper House MuseumMuseum
Restaurants and cafes 2
- Sperrgebiet BistroRestaurant
- Ciatos Eatery and BarRestaurant
Bars and pubs 1
- CoolboxBar
Oranjemund is the diamond town on the north bank of the Orange River mouth, in Namibia’s far south west, and had 7,736 people at the 2023 census. For about eighty years it belonged to the mine. Consolidated Diamond Mines, part of the De Beers group, founded it in 1936, and outsiders needed a permit to get in until it opened to the public on 21 October 2017. Visitors now find shady trees, oryx grazing between the houses and a small museum with the story of a ship wrecked on this coast in 1533.
Getting there
From inside Namibia you arrive through Rosh Pinah. The last 90 km from there follow the river and are tarred. To reach Rosh Pinah you take the C13 south from Aus, 169 km that have been tarred since 2007. Aus has a garage and Rosh Pinah sells fuel, so fill up at both. Travellers have reported a security checkpoint about 20 km past Rosh Pinah where you show photo ID, so keep your passport handy.
You cannot drive up the coast to Lüderitz, as that strip is still restricted diamond land inside Tsau ǁKhaeb (Sperrgebiet) National Park. From South Africa you come over the Ernest Oppenheimer Bridge from Alexander Bay, east of town, where there is a border post. FlyNamibia flies to Eros Airport in Windhoek from the airstrip about 4 km south of town; check the schedule first.
When to go
Any month. This is desert, with around 50 mm of rain in a year and mild temperatures most of the time. The wind is said to bite less here than in Namibia’s other coastal towns. Watch for floods on the river, which now and then cover even the raised bridge.
What to do
Start at the Jasper House Museum on 9th Avenue. It covers the mining past with old photographs and machinery, and since August 2024 it has a permanent room on the Bom Jesus, the Portuguese ship found by diamond miners in 2008. The room tells the story in photos, text and a model.
The town is small enough to walk, and the oryx have right of way. Drive slowly, don’t hoot at them, and don’t hoot at all near the mine hostels and the old age home. The beach (about 12 km) and the golf course (about 10 km) are signposted from the main road. The river mouth wetland, a Ramsar site on both sides of the border, is good for birds.
The Sendelingsdrif ferry crossing upstream makes it possible to pair a visit with the Richtersveld in South Africa.
Good to know
The CDC calls malaria rare outside the regions it lists, and ǁKaras is not one of them, so mosquito repellent is enough. Most land outside town and off the public roads is still mining area, so stay on the roads. At last report there was no car hire and almost nothing set up for tourists, though there is a supermarket in the centre. Beds are few, so book before you drive in.
History and culture
Oranjemund was built in 1936 by a diamond company on land Germany had closed to the public in 1908, and for most of its life you could only enter with the mine's permission. It opened to everyone in 2017. Its story is the story of Namibia's diamond coast, from the colonial Sperrgebiet to the company town and the Portuguese wreck the miners dug out of the sand in 2008.
- 1533
The Bom Jesus, a Portuguese trading ship that left Lisbon on 7 March 1533 for India, probably hit a rock in a storm off this coast and broke up. Its cargo of copper, ivory and gold coins lay buried in the sand until miners found it in 2008. source
- 1904 to 1908
Between 1904 and 1908 the German Empire, which had claimed the colony of German South West Africa in 1884, carried out the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples. Up to about 80,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama, half of all Nama, died. source
- 1908
After August Stauch found the first diamond near Grasplatz station in April 1908, the German government closed the coast that September as the Sperrgebiet (forbidden area) and gave the German Diamond Company sole mining rights. The public has been kept out of most of it ever since. source
- 1915
South African troops took the colony during the First World War. After the war South Africa ran South West Africa as a League of Nations mandate. source
- 1928 to 1936
After diamonds were found south of the river in 1927, Hans Merensky and other prospectors made an expedition from Lüderitz and found rich deposits on the north bank of the Orange mouth. Their tented camp grew into Oranjemund, but the Great Depression held mining back until 1935, and the first workers' houses went up in 1936. source
- 1966 to 1990
South Africa applied its apartheid system in South West Africa and kept control after the United Nations ended its mandate in 1966. The country became independent as Namibia on 21 March 1990. source
- 1990s
After independence the Namibian government bought a half share in the diamond operations, and the joint company became Namdeb, owned with De Beers. source
- 2011 to 2017
Oranjemund was proclaimed a town on 1 August 2011, and its first town council was sworn in on 23 March 2012. It stayed closed to outsiders until the handover was complete and opened to the public on 21 October 2017. source
- Language
- In the 2023 census, about 43 percent of people in Oranjemund constituency (the town and the country around it) spoke one of the Oshiwambo languages at home, about 30 percent Afrikaans and about 10 percent English. Rukwangali and Khoekhoegowab came next. Only two people gave German. source
- Company town
- Apartheid laws officially applied here too, but the mine applied them much more loosely than elsewhere. A 2025 German newspaper report says schools, the hospital, housing areas and bars were not segregated. source
- Company town life
- In the second half of the twentieth century the mine town had a large recreation complex with a swimming pool, a cinema, restaurants and bars. source
- Oryx
- Oryx (gemsbok) wander the streets and lawns, and locals expect drivers to give way and never hoot at them. Hooting is also frowned on near the hostels where shift workers sleep. source
For German visitors: The Sperrgebiet that shaped this town was a German creation of 1908, and the German word is still used for the area and in the name of Tsau ǁKhaeb (Sperrgebiet) National Park. source
For German visitors: Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, who controlled De Beers and after whom the bridge is named, was born in 1880 in Friedberg in Hesse into a German Jewish family. source
For German visitors: Hans Merensky, whose 1927 diamond finds in Namaqualand led to the discovery here, was the son of the German missionary Alexander Merensky. He grew up and studied mining geology in Germany. source
For German visitors: The copper ingots on the Bom Jesus carry the trident mark of Anton Fugger of the Fugger trading house in Augsburg. source
For American visitors: Archaeologists Filipe Castro and Donny Hamilton of Texas A&M University joined the 2008 talks on excavating the Bom Jesus, and the resulting Oranjemund Statement let Texas A&M and Portuguese teams work on the wreck. source
Main sights in Oranjemund
3- Jasper House Museum
The town museum, where a permanent exhibit on the Bom Jesus shipwreck, with a model of the ship, was opened in August 2024. Local leaders hope the wreck will make Oranjemund a place to come for maritime history.
Namibian Sun: Bom Jesus shipwreck exhibit inaugurated in Oranjemund (22 August 2024) - Ernest Oppenheimer Bridge
The road bridge to Alexander Bay in South Africa, built for Consolidated Diamond Mines. The first, low bridge of 1950 flooded, so it was replaced in 1953 by the present 937 m bridge a little upstream. It once had a locked gate guarded by men with dogs and is now a public border crossing.
Wikipedia (German): Ernest-Oppenheimer-Brücke - Orange River Mouth
The wetland where the river meets the Atlantic is a Ramsar site and one of the few permanent wetlands on this dry coast. In 1985, between about 20,700 and 26,700 birds of 57 species were counted here.
Wikipedia: Orange River
Did you know?
- The Bom Jesus carried 1,845 copper ingots weighing about 16 to 17 tonnes, more than 2,000 gold and silver coins and 105 elephant tusks. DNA from the tusks traced them to West African elephants from around 17 herds. source
- In 2017 the gold coins from the wreck were reported to be in a central bank vault in Windhoek, while ship timbers and weapon parts sat in water tanks at the mine to draw out the salt. source
- The Ernest Oppenheimer Bridge is the last bridge over the Orange before the sea, about 10 km from the mouth. The next one upstream, at Noordoewer, is about 230 km away by road. source
- Khoekhoe speakers called the river Kai !Arib, the great river, which became Gariep in Afrikaans. Robert Gordon of the Dutch East India Company named it the Orange in 1779 after William V of Orange, not for its colour. source
- Oranjemund held its first ever local election on 16 March 2012, when 2,221 registered voters chose a council. SWAPO, the former liberation movement, won. source
Checked 7 October 2026.
Guides for Oranjemund
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