Travel Guide Mariental

The town was named after Marie Brandt, the wife of the famous pioneer Hermann Brandt, who bought the farm that had belonged to the Nama chief Hendrik Witbooi and named it Mariental. In 1895, a police station was built on the farm. Ten years later, the Koichas farm was given to police sergeant Stumpfe, who in 1912 donated 70 ha of the property to the German Colonial Railway Company. Thus, a railway station was erected in the same year, which served as a stopover on the Windhoek-Keetmanshoop line. Although the station was located on the Koichas farm, it was named Mariental Station. The first private residence was built by Stumpfe in 1912, and in 1914 he petitioned the colonial administration to develop a town on the site. The request remained unsuccessful until 1920, when the Dutch Reformed Church settled on the Mariental farm. The village became a small town in 1946 and had its first paved road in 1950. The Hardap dam allowed for the irrigation of the crops that developed near the town. All around Mariental there are now farms of karakuls (astrakhan) and ostriches.