Katima Mulilo property guide

Katima Mulilo at a glance

Situated in the far north-east of Namibia, Katima Mulilo serves as the regional capital of the Zambezi region.

Katima Mulilo, often shortened to Katima, has about 28.000 inhabitants. The name comes from the SiLozi for “quench the fire”, referring to nearby rapids in the Zambezi

On 28 January 1935, the administrative centre of the Caprivi Strip was moved from Schuckmannsburg to Katima Mulilo. This date is assumed as the foundation date of Katima Mulilo. The regional office, the only brick-and-mortar building at Katima Mulilo at this time when the area consisted exclusively of pristine forests, was built under a giant Baobab situated near today's SWAPO Party regional offices. In present times the tree is known as the Toilet Tree because of a restroom carved into it

In 1940, William "Bill" Finaughty established the first shop in the Caprivi Strip in Katima Mulilo; the settlement that surrounded the shop was subsequently named after him. In the 1950s transport on the Zambezi River was established and allowed connection to the train service at Livingstone. The M'pacha Airfield, today Katima Mulilo Airport, was constructed in 1965 at a cost of 65 million Rand, an astronomical amount at that time when 2 Rand roughly equaled 1 Pound sterling. A police station was erected in 1961.

The oldest suburbs are Nghweeze, the former Blacks' township, and Katima Mulilo Proper, the area restricted to Whites during the apartheid era. Butterfly, Cowboy, Choto, and Mahohoma are registered informal settlements of Katima, further parts of town are named Nambweza, Soweto (South–Western Townships, a reminiscence of the famous suburb of Johannesburg), New Look, Mabuluma, Lyambai, Bebi, Greenwell Matongo, Macaravan East and West, and NHE (from National Housing Enterprises, a governmental low-cost housing company that drew development here)

Since the opening of the Katima Mulilo Bridge in 2004 which spans the Zambezi River and connects the Zambian Copperbelt with the Namibian deep-sea harbour at Walvis Bay, Katima Mulilo has become a boomtown that attracts significant investment

Property Types

• Houses
• Farms

Schools

• Katima High School
• Caprivi Secondary School