The story of gold in Namibia begins not with glittering reefs or roaring mills, but with scattered grains of promise hidden in river gravels and quartz veins across the country’s arid highlands.
Long before modern machinery arrived, early prospectors whispered of yellow metal glinting beneath the sun-baked hills of the interior.
Yet the first documented discoveries appeared around 1899, when geologists of the German Colonial Geological Survey began tracing faint signs of gold across what is now central Namibia — the geological heart of the country’s gold story.
According to the Atlas of Namibia (University of Namibia, 2020), gold was first discovered in the Rehoboth District in 1899, making it the earliest verified occurrence in the territory.
These traces were found within the Sinclair Sequence, part of the southern margin of the Damara Belt, where schists and quartzites carry occasional flecks of gold.
In geological terms, central Namibia stretches from Rehoboth, just south of Windhoek, through Okahandja, Omaruru, and Karibib, to the Khan and Swakop River valleys that wind westward toward Usakos and Swakopmund.
Within this region lies the Central Zone of the Damara Belt, a corridor of marbles, schists, and quartzites that would later host every significant Namibian gold deposit.
Between 1899 and 1920, German geologists Paul Range, Hans Martin, and Siegfried Passarge laid the foundations of Namibia’s geological mapping.
According to Range’s 1915 report, Beiträge zur Geologie des Khan-Swakop-Reviers, he documented quartz veins containing pyrite and chalcopyrite along the Khan and Swakop Rivers.
He described several as “goldführend” (gold-bearing). Martin, who later became head of the South West Africa Geological Survey under South African administration, confirmed these early observations in his 1931 monograph.
The Geological History of South West Africa. Passarge, a geomorphologist, contributed indirectly by charting the topography and drainage of the Damara Highlands, explaining how seasonal rivers such as the Khan and Omaruru could trap alluvial gold.
Their collective work provided Namibia’s first recorded geological framework for gold — establishing that the Damara Belt was not merely a barren mountain chain, but a gold-bearing province.
The first gold rushes
The first organised extraction came in 1917, when prospectors discovered the Ondundu goldfield northwest of Omaruru.
According to Mindat.org and the Geological Survey of Namibia’s archives, Ondundu produced approximately 19,851 ounces of gold (about 616 kilograms) from a combination of alluvial, eluvial, and shallow vein workings before closing in 1963.
The ore was processed using hand crushing, gravity concentration, and rudimentary field smelting.
During the German colonial period (1899–1915), gold recovered from scattered prospects near Otjimbingwe and Omaruru was traded locally.
Archival customs ledgers held at the Reichskolonialamt in Berlin record small parcels — typically between 50 and 300 grams — exported via Swakopmund to Germany, often mixed with copper ore consignments.
Most of this gold was purchased by trading posts in Otjimbingwe and Windhoek, where German merchants assayed it and sent it to European refiners.
According to correspondence cited in Range’s field notes (1912), small “field amalgamation” operations used mercury to extract gold from gravels, likely introduced by diggers from the Cape.
With no mint or refinery in South West Africa, virtually all gold left the country as unrefined dust or crude smelted bars.
After the First World War, Namibia came under South African administration, and the gold recovered from Ondundu, Epako–Otjua, and Rehoboth was exported under licence to Rand Refinery in Johannesburg.
The South West Africa Geological Survey Bulletin (1931) notes that “gold recovered from Ondundu was melted into crude bars in the field, later delivered under escort to the South African Mint.”
Small parcels were occasionally sold through Windhoek or Omaruru merchants, but none were retained for local use — there was no domestic jewellery or coinage market.
Between 1933 and 1941, according to a 2019 report in Republikein, about 199 kilograms of gold were recovered from the Rehoboth area, mostly from oxidised and weathered deposits.
An additional 47 kilograms came from alluvial workings at Epako–Otjua near Omaruru. These figures, derived from historical mining records, demonstrate that while production remained modest, the Damara Belt had proven gold potential.
Gold in those years served symbolic and survivalist roles. As the Atlas of Namibia notes, it “contributed little to national revenue but much to local hope.”
Prospectors used it to barter for supplies during drought years, and colonial administrators pointed to it as proof that the territory was mineralised.
Still, by the early 1960s, cumulative production stood at less than 700 kilograms — an amount Navachab would later produce in a single month.
Navachab and the modern industry
After decades of dormancy, systematic exploration revived interest in the 1980s.
According to Anglo American’s records, its subsidiary Erongo Exploration and Mining Company discovered the Navachab deposit near Karibib in October 1984, following a geochemical sampling programme across the central Damara Belt.
Construction began in 1988, and the mine poured its first gold bar in December 1989. As SAIMM Journal (Vol. 91, No. 3, 1991) records, President Sam Nujoma formally opened Navachab in June 1990, marking the start of Namibia’s modern gold industry.
Two decades later, a new chapter opened further north. Near Otjiwarongo, Auryx Gold, co-founded by Namibian geologist Heye Daun, delineated the Otjikoto deposit, which was later acquired by B2Gold in 2011.
According to company records, the first gold pour occurred on 11 December 2014, establishing Otjikoto as Namibia’s second commercial-scale producer and one of Africa’s most efficient open-pit mines.
The Twin Hills and Kokoseb
In recent years, exploration has returned to the Damara Belt in force. Osino Resources’ Twin Hills project near Karibib has delineated more than three million ounces in combined resources and is now advancing toward development.
Ondundu, acquired by Osino from B2Gold in 2022, is being re-evaluated with modern drilling and 3D modelling.
Further northwest, near Okombahe and Uis, the Kokoseb Gold Project — a joint venture between WIA Gold and Epangelo Mining — has become Namibia’s most promising discovery.
According to WIA Gold’s 2025 resource update and reports in Mining & Energy Namibia, Kokoseb now holds approximately 2.93 million ounces of gold, with 1.81 million ounces classified as Indicated.
The deposit lies within the Northern Central Zone of the Damara Belt, extending the same structural corridor that hosts Navachab and Twin Hills.
Environmental permitting and baseline studies, managed by ECC Environmental, are currently underway.
From dust to industry
From the hand-dug trenches of Ondundu to the mechanised haul trucks of Otjikoto and the digital exploration grids of Kokoseb, Namibia’s gold story spans more than a century of perseverance.
Each generation of geologists — from Range, Martin, and Passarge to today’s data-driven explorers — built upon the discoveries of the last.
As the Chamber of Mines of Namibia notes, the country’s modern gold sector now contributes billions to GDP and sustains hundreds of local jobs, yet it rests on the shoulders of those early diggers who panned their dreams from dry riverbeds.
