Kimberley, the capital of South Africa's Northern Cape province, is known as the Diamond City because of its importance in the diamond rush of the 1870s. Its famous open-pit mine, known as the Big Hole, is now a popular museum.

The famous Big Hole was an open-pit mine during the country's diamond-rush - and is now a museum.

Kimberley became famous after the discovery of an immense wealth of diamond deposits, and fortune seekers converged in the city to dig; what they created was the world's largest open-pit hand-dug mine.

"We trying to keep tourists here because of the rich history, and that is what its all about, because a lot of people don't know that a lot of Kimberley's diamonds were the main investment for the operating mines of Johannesburg. The mining history plays a very important role because it was, at one stage, one of the richest mines in the world," Romano Bezuidenhout, marketing officer of the Big Hole said.

Over the years, the Big Hole has become the singular most important tourism attraction here Kimberley; in fact, the entire town was developed around mine itself.

The Big Hole is still owned by diamond-mining giants the De Beers, who profited greatly from the diamonds excavated before the mine closed in 1914.

"This mine yields just over 145 million carats; what makes it historical is because of the history that took place during the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley, which took place back in the 1800's," Bezuidenhout said.

For visitors, the Big Hole gives insight into what established South Africa as one of the world's top mining destinations.

"I think the big hole is very interesting to see, and it gives you an idea of South Africa's mining history, and later on gold mining became part of our history, so I think this was the first mining industry in South Africa," Emile Gerbrantz said.

"It massively, massively significant. In fact, i heard that De Beers is buying up land all around here because of the the diamond content that still exists in the soil that was dug out of here but wasn't able to be mined all those years ago," Rory Bozman said.

"After all the mining news that you hear and see on television, it makes it more interesting to see this because now you can how its all existed and all started and what it is nowadays," Michael Gerbrantz said.

The Big Hole remains a historic site and a mine rich in unearthed diamond deposits; its worth is much greater than the mere market value of its precious stones.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)