German South West Africa

This article is about South West Africa (disambiguation). For other uses, see German South West Africa (disambiguation).

German South West Africa (German: Deutsch-Südwestafrika, DSWA) was a German colony in Africa from 1884 through 1915. It is now Namibia. From 1891, the capital was Windhoek, the same city as the capital of today's Namibia. It covered an area of 835,100 km² (322,434 sq mi). This is over one and half times the size of the German Empire at the time.

German South West Africa Deutsch-Südwestafrika
1884–1915
Green: German South West Africa Dark Grey: Other German possessions Black: German Empire Note: The historical extent of German territories are depicted over present-day political borders.
Status	German colony
Capital	Windhoek (from 1891)
Common languages	German (official), Herero, Afrikaans, Khoekhoe
Religion	Christianity, Saan religion
Governor
• 1898–1905	Theodor von Leutwein
• 1905–1907	Friedrich von Lindequist
• 1907–1910	Bruno von Schuckmann
• 1910–1915	Theodor Seitz
Historical era	Scramble for Africa
•	7 August 1884
• Genocide	1904–1907
•	9 July 1915
• Treaty of Versailles	1919
Area
Currency	German South West African mark
Succeeded by South West Africa
Today part of	Namibia

German South West Africa Media

• 

  European settlers in German Southwest Africa, c. 1911.

• 

  • For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme.
• 

  Map of the 1915 South West Africa campaign