Chapter 653 Provincial Capital Selection
In other words, the current Walvis Bay Port and Swakopmund Port are only fishing ports, providing services for passing ships, while Swakopmund Port works part-time as a military port.
“The country’s emphasis on Southwest Africa is probably on the same level as that of the Congo Rainforest, Serengeti Nature Reserve, and Limpopo Nature Reserve in East Africa. We are treated the same as animals on the grasslands,” Val joked.
Yasold said: "Haha, I don't know about other places. The Limpopo River Nature Reserve is not at the same level as us. The Limpopo River Nature Reserve is under the jurisdiction of Hechingen Province and Southern Frontier Province.
Do you think the name Hechingen can mean a simple place? Moreover, the capital of Hechingen Province is called Otto City. This name was taken from the previous generation Prince of Hechingen, the father of His Majesty the King.
There is also the Southern Frontier Province. The development of the provincial capital New Hamburg Port City is changing with each passing day. Depending on the situation, people are on par with Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. "
Val retorted: "I'm not talking about the same thing as you. The Limpopo River Nature Reserve is not the same as Hechingen Province and Southern Frontier Province. Although they are intertwined, they are at the same level, just like the railway belongs to the railway. System regulation, not the same across provinces.”
"The Limpopo River Nature Reserve is not something that we in Southwest Africa can touch. It is a genuine provincial administrative unit. Our Southwest Africa is not yet a province, it can only be regarded as a region. Furthermore, the Limpopo River Nature Reserve The number of troops alone is greater than the population of the entire Southwest Africa, so what can we compare with it?" Yasold reminded.
It is also embarrassing to say that Southwest Africa has not become a formal member of East Africa until now. According to the precedent in East Africa, the situation in Southwest Africa should belong to a military control area. This was the case when Matabele Province was first occupied by East Africa. , but was soon classified as a province by East Africa.
"This is normal. If the central government approves and builds the Mangjing Highway, it can be regarded as taking care of Southwest Africa. After all, as far as the economic situation and natural environment of the entire Southwest Africa is concerned, even I don't pay much attention to it. Let alone the highway, I don't care about maintaining it. Maritime transportation is enough, and building such a long road is completely uneconomical in my opinion,” Val said.
Before Southwest Africa officially became a province, excluding military personnel, Yasold and Val, as well as the mayor of Orangemond (the mouth of the Orange River), should be the top three senior officials in Southwest Africa. As for Lüderitz does not belong to an administrative region, but is entirely a military stronghold in the Lüderitz Bay.
"So you said that if Southwest Africa is divided into provinces in the future, the provincial capital should be chosen between our two cities!" Yasold suddenly realized this problem.
“There is a high probability that you are from Walvis Bay City. After all, your economy and population are stronger.”
“Not necessarily. The selection of provincial capitals will not use these two factors as key indicators. The economies of provincial capitals in many provinces may not be stronger than other cities in the province.”
“It can’t be Orangemond anyway,” Val concluded.
“That’s not necessarily the case. Southwest Africa is such a large area, and we can definitely divide it into a few more provinces. Although Orangemond is remote, if Southwest Africa is divided into multiple provinces, Orangemond has a great chance.”
The predictions of the two senior city officials for the future of Southwest Africa can only be said to be completely different from Ernst’s ideas.
Ernst is not very concerned about Southwest Africa. That is because construction is happening everywhere in East Africa, and the conditions and importance of other regions in East Africa are much stronger than those in Southwest Africa.
In a broad sense, Southwest Africa actually has three provinces, one is Laitania Province in the Okavango River Basin, and the Kalahari Basin is Lorraine Province with the Okavango River Delta as the center. It belongs to the province of New Baden with Bechuanaland as its core.
These three provinces all belong to the transition zone between desert and grassland. The remaining large land is Southwest Africa without administrative divisions, which is most of Namibia, Botswana, and parts of South Africa in the previous life. Ernst had no plans to split the remaining Southwest Africa, which was more than one million square kilometers, because the positioning of Southwest Africa was very similar to the Western Province of the Far Eastern Empire.
But it is far less important than the Western Region Province. The Western Region Province is located in Central Asia and is very important to the defense of the Far Eastern Empire. However, there are almost no threats on land in Southwest Africa. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean, and the areas bordering the north and south and Britain and Portugal are also areas with harsh environments.
Apart from other things, the economic conditions of the Western Region Province are not comparable to those of Southwest Africa, especially the agricultural conditions. The oasis agriculture in the Western Region Province is very developed. There are a large number of high-quality agricultural zones around the Tarim River in the Tianshan Mountains or the Ili River Valley. This is actually different from that in East Africa. The Somali region is very similar and can support a large population.
There are no big rivers in Southwest Africa, and there are widespread deserts and barren lands. There are no high mountains like the Tianshan Mountains, and there is not much melting water from ice and snow in the mountains.
Southwest Africa in East Africa is larger than Namibia in the previous life, so a large part of the Kalahari Desert also belongs to Southwest Africa, and the area of the Kalahari Desert exceeds 600,000 square kilometers.
Even though Namibia has a long coastline, it is basically covered by the Namib Desert. If the development path of the previous life was followed, the role of these coastlines would not be fully utilized.
The main factors limiting the development of its coastline are infrastructure and national economic strength. If East Africa opens a railway channel to the inland and the Atlantic through here in the future, the economic level of Southwest Africa is estimated to surpass Namibia in the twentieth century.
Overall, the potential of Southwest Africa is not ranked high compared to East Africa, and due to climate reasons, there is no need to split it.
As for the choice of a provincial capital, Ernst had actually already thought of it. He would not choose a coastal area, but a plateau in the central part of Southwest Africa. For example, Windhoek, the capital of Namibia in its previous life, was a good choice.
So the ideas of Yathold and Val are doomed to fail. As for why they chose the central plateau, which is not developed at all, the reason is very simple. The population of the central plateau is larger there.
Taking Walvis Bay as an example, water source is a big problem. So far, its food still relies on sea transportation. Although Swakopmund has the Swakop River, the water volume of the Swakop River is not large and it is still a seasonal river.
In the previous life, the combined population of these two cities barely exceeded 100,000. If the population cannot increase, the development potential of these two cities will be very limited. This is also an important reason why Central Railway did not choose to go overseas here.
Therefore, the future provincial capital of Southwest Africa will definitely be built in the central plateau area, which has certain agricultural potential. Moreover, the central plateau area is an important mineral distribution area in Southwest Africa, and it has greater potential than coastal ports.
In addition, the three central provinces in East Africa are developing very rapidly, which will effectively radiate to the central area of Southwest Africa in the future, further weakening the port transportation advantage along the coast of Southwest Africa.
Because the development of mineral resources in the central region has two directions, one is for export, and the other is for East Africa's own use. For export, you can also choose the railway through the eastern port in the future, let alone East Africa's own use. Now the industry has been in the three central provinces deploy.
Of course, Atlantic ports such as Walvis Bay still have a role to play. After all, they provide a few more options, which are conducive to the security of East African commodity exports and are of certain significance to national defense security.
However, its population capacity is a big problem, which also means that it is difficult to develop coastal ports in Southwest Africa into comprehensive ports. They can only focus on developing a few pillar industries. This is the main reason why provincial capitals do not consider coastal ports.
(End of this chapter)