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Farm house, Northern Cape
Kimberley is the capital of the Northern Cape province. Kimberley is located near the meeting of the Vaal and Orange rivers, and is historically noteworthy due to its diamond mining past. Memorable personalities, such as Cecil John Rhodes, made their fortune here and the beginnings of the De Beers Corporation can also be traced back to the glory days of Kimberley.
The first diamond was found in the Kimberley district in 1869, when diamonds were found in the walls of a house on the Bultfontein farm. The town quickly grew into one of South Africa's biggest mining towns and was home to some 50,000 miners.
Today, Kimberley's main attraction is an old mine known as the Big Hole that yielded 2 722kg of diamonds. The Big Hole has a surface of 17 hectares (42 acres) and has has a depth of 240m, although the hole has since filled with 40m of water, which leaves only 175m visible. There is currently an effort in progress to register the Big Hole as a World Heritage Site.
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