Phokeng

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title: "Phokeng" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["populated-places-in-the-rustenburg-local-municipality"] topic_path: "general/populated-places-in-the-rustenburg-local-municipality" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phokeng" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::data[format=table title="Infobox settlement"]

Field	Value
name	Phokeng
native_name	Magatostad
image_skyline	Heke ya Phokeng.jpg
image_caption	Photo of Heke ya Phokeng Entance
pushpin_map	South Africa North West#South Africa
coordinates
subdivision_type	Country
subdivision_name	South Africa
subdivision_type1	Province
subdivision_name1	North West
subdivision_type2	District
subdivision_name2	Bojanala Platinum
subdivision_type3	Municipality
subdivision_name3	Rustenburg
established_title	Established
established_date	1140
government_type	Monarchy
leader_party	Bafokeng
leader_title	King
leader_name	Kgosi (King) Leruo Molotlegi
area_footnotes
area_total_km2	34.28
population_footnotes
population_total	34597
population_as_of	2011
population_density_km2	auto
	demographics_type1
demographics1_footnotes
demographics1_title1	Black African
demographics1_info1	99.1%
demographics1_title2	Coloured
demographics1_info2	0.3%
demographics1_title3	Indian/Asian
demographics1_info3	0.1%
demographics1_title4	White
demographics1_info4	0.1%
demographics1_title5	Other
demographics1_info5	0.4%
	demographics_type2
demographics2_footnotes
demographics2_title1	Tswana
demographics2_info1	77.1%
demographics2_title2	English
demographics2_info2	6.2%
demographics2_title3	Zulu
demographics2_info3	3.2%
demographics2_title4	Tsonga
demographics2_info4	2.1%
demographics2_title5	Other
demographics2_info5	11.4%
	timezone1
utc_offset1	+2
postal_code_type	Postal code (street)
postal_code	0335
postal2_code_type	PO box
postal2_code	0335
area_code_type	Area code
area_code	014
website
::

Etymology

Phokeng gained its name from the Sesotho word for dew, Phoka, hence Place of dew. It is believed to have first been settled in the late 17th century.

History

Phokeng is one of a number of BaTswana towns in the North West Province that were founded by Sotho-Tswana people who had been displaced by years of war in the late 18th and early 19th centuries – first the Difaqane wars caused by the invasion of the Matebele, and then the wars of conquest by the Boers. Just a few years after the wars, the famous missionary and explorer, David Livingstone, visited the Bakwena of chief Mokgatle, and found that in addition to farming and raising cattle, they made ornaments out of copper that they mined and smelted themselves.

The BaTswana people of the area had been living in the area for hundreds of years, but by the mid-19th century, many had been scattered among Boer farms and indentured to work for white farmers. Several chiefs began gathering their old followers around the 1850s and 1860s, asking for donations of cattle to create a fund to purchase land. With the help of German missionaries of the Hermannsburg Mission Society, several chiefs succeeded in buying land and re-establishing villages and chiefdoms. Phokeng was the largest and most famous of these villages in what was then the Western Transvaal. The chief who organized the purchases was named Chief Mokgatle, and the missionary who helped him was named Reverend Penzhorn. In 1908, a very old man who lived in Phokeng told a court how the Bafokeng of Phokeng bought their land:

::quote We were told once that the land in which we lived was white man's land. We were told we [could] buy from the white man, a white man could take transfer for us. The tribe determined to buy land and all contributed to buy [the chief's, i.e., Mokgatle Mokgatle's] kraal. Then it was allowed that any petty chief should buy themselves ground. The chief [Mokgatle] said those who were able to do so could. My father was there and he told me. ::

By 1900, there were many such villages scattered through this part of the Transvaal, including the Bakwena Ba Magopa villages of Bethanie, Kgabalatsane and Ga-Rankuwa and the Bakgatla village of Saulspoort north of the Pilanesberg mountains.

One thing that made these villages unusual was that they owned the land somewhat in the way white people did. In other words, villages like Phokeng were not just "reserves", but were owned by villagers, although through a system of trusts controlled by the missionaries and the chief. For this reason, when platinum was discovered under the lands of Phokeng, the chiefdom was able to earn some revenue from mining and at one point, the Bakwena Bafokeng of Phokeng were described as one of the wealthiest tribes in South Africa.

Phokeng was included in the "Scheduled Native Areas" under the 1913 Natives Land Act. This essentially transformed Phokeng and its surrounding lands into a "reserve".

One of South Africa's most important African writers of the 20th century, Naboth Mokgatle, was from Phokeng. He wrote a memoir entitled Autobiography of an Unknown South African; the first chapters of the book contain a very detailed description of what it was like to grow up in the village in the late-early 20th century. He describes wearing traditional clothing made of animal skins, walking far off into the veld herding cattle for his father and uncle and working for neighbouring white farmers.

By the 1930s, an African-American minister, Rev. Spooner, had come to live in Phokeng and he founded a church that was separate from the German missionary church. The split between Christians who followed the German missionaries and those who followed the new churches created a great deal of turmoil in the 1930s in all these villages, including Phokeng.

During the apartheid era, the "reserve" that Phokeng was part of was transformed into the "homeland" of Bophutatswana.

People

The inhabitants are part of the Batswana tribe and their totem is a crocodile, and they refer to each as kwena meaning crocodile in Setswana and Sesotho languages or the person from Bafokeng areas as Mokwena or Mmanape.

Demographics (2001)

Source:

Area: 1.82 sqkm
Population: 2,111: 1157.5 PD/sqkm
Households: 591: 324.06 /sqkm

::data[format=table]

Gender	Population	%
Female	1,026	48.6
Male	1,085	51.4
::

::data[format=table]

Race	Population	%
Black	2,111	100
White	0	0
Coloured	0	0
Asian	0	0
::

::data[format=table]

First language	Population	%
Setswana	1,962	92.89
IsiXhosa	66	3.13
Afrikaans	15	0.71
Sepedi	12	0.57
IsiZulu	21	0.99
English	6	0
Sesotho	12	0.57
Xitsonga	0	0
SiSwati	6	0.28
Tshivenda	0	0
IsiNdebele	0	0
Other	18	0.85
::

Sport

The Royal Bafokeng Stadium, a venue for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2010 FIFA World Cup, is located in Phokeng. The England national football team was based in Phokeng during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

References

"Main Place Phokeng". Census 2011.
"Magatostad".
"Phokeng - North West Province South Africa".
[http://census.adrianfrith.com/place/60301034], [[South African National Census of 2001. Census 2001]] — Sub Place "Phokeng"

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