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Klerksdorp is a city located in the North West Province, South Africa. Mafikeng, the provincial capital, lies roughly 170km north-west of Klerksdorp and Johannesburg 170km in a north-eastern direction. ==History== The city was founded in 1837 when the Voortrekkers settled on the banks of the ''Schoonspruit'' ("Clear stream"), which flows through the town. Klerksdorp is the oldest European (white) settlement north of the Vaal River, and thus of the former Transvaal Republic. The most prominent of the first settlers was C.M. du Plooy who claimed a farm of about 160 km², called it ''Elandsheuwel'' ("Hill of the Eland"). He gave plots of land and communal grazing rights on this farm to other Voortrekkers in return for their labour in building a dam and an irrigation canal. This collection of smallholdings was later given the name of Klerksdorp in honour of the first ''landdrost'' (magistrate) of the area, Jacob de Clercq. In August 1886 gold was discovered in the Klerksdorp district by M.G. Jansen van Vuuren as well as on the Witwatersrand, which lies about 160 km to the east. As a consequence, thousands of fortune-seekers descended on the small village, turning it into a town with 70 taverns and even a stock exchange of its own. However, the nature of the gold reef demanded expensive and sophisticated equipment to mine and extract the gold, causing the majority of diggers to move away in the late 1890s and leading to a decline in the gold mining industry. During the Second Boer War (1899-1902), heavy fighting occurred in the area, which also housed a large concentration camp. The most famous of the battles around Klerksdorp, is that of the Battle of Ysterspruit (Iron Stream), in which the Boer General, Koos de la Rey, achieved a great victory. The battle is one of the most celebrated of the general's career, being the battle in which the Boer soldiers pioneered the art of firing from horseback. On April 11, 1902, Rooiwal, near Klerkdorp, saw the Battle of Rooiwal, the last major engagement of the war, where a Boer charge was beaten off by entrenched British troops. The graves of the victims of the concentration camps, namely Boer women and children, can still be visited today in the old cemetery just outside of town, numbering just below a thousand. Klerksdorp was connected by rail to Krugersdorp on 3 August 1897 and to Kimberley in 1906. Today Klerksdorp is celebrated as the birthplace of Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu on October 7, 1931. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his work towards "a democratic and just society without racial divisions". The life work of Desmond Tutu has been to heal the scars left among the descendants of the many battles for control of South Africa. There is an irony of his birthplace set amidst Boer monuments and old battlefields, early settlements by those same Boers, among them famous leaders like Jacob de Clerq, even close to Witwatersrand where gold was discovered. He somehow managed to rise beyond pettiness and division to bring all these forces together with displaced native peoples in places such as this creating an international role model. He was later awarded multiple worldwide honors for his achievements in the reconciliation of the ethnic and cultural divisions in the history of his country.() The gold mining industry was revived by large mining companies in 1932, causing the town to undergo an economic revival, which accelerated after World War II. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Klerksdorp」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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