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Windhoek, capital of Namibia: facts and figures

Windhoek is the capital of Namibia. It has about 430,000 residents, which makes it the 141st most populous capital of the 172 in DailyGeo's atlas, and it sits 1,651 m above sea level. Its nearest neighbouring capital is Gaborone, 929 km away.

Key figures

FigureValue
CountryNamibia
ContinentAfrica
City population430,000 residents
World rank by population141st of 172
Elevation1,651 m
Founded1840
Time zoneAfrica/Windhoek
Coordinates22.56° S, 17.08° E
Country population3,092,816 residents
Country GDP15.1 billion US dollars
GDP per capita$4,876
Life expectancy67.5 years
Internet users64.9 %
Big Mac pricenot reported

Climate through the year

Windhoek averages 15.0 °C from June to August and 23.6 °C from December to February. June is the coldest month of the year and November the warmest, and the city receives 277 mm of precipitation in an average year.

Monthly means from ERA5 reanalysis, 2015 to 2024.
MonthMean temperature
January23.7 °C
February23.0 °C
March21.9 °C
April19.9 °C
May17.4 °C
June13.9 °C
July13.9 °C
August17.1 °C
September20.7 °C
October23.2 °C
November24.2 °C
December24.2 °C

What makes it stand out

  • Isolation: 3rd most isolated capital in Africa (929 km).

Nearest capitals

Distances are great-circle distances between city centres, which is what the Capitals game measures when it tells you how far a guess was from the answer. Gaborone is the closest capital to Windhoek.

CapitalCountryDistance
GaboroneBotswana929 km
PretoriaSouth Africa1,181 km
MaseruLesotho1,281 km
LusakaZambia1,425 km
HarareZimbabwe1,549 km

How to remember it

Reading a figure once rarely fixes it in memory. Attach Windhoek to a place and a number you already know: it is 929 km from Gaborone, and it is the 141st largest capital in the atlas. Then practise retrieving it. DailyGeo Capitals gives you one mystery capital a day with distance, direction, language and population clues, the memorising method explains the review schedule, and the capitals index lists all 172.

To see how Namibia compares with every other country on figures like these, the richest countries by GDP per capita ranks them on geopolitix, a country-ranking game by the same maker as DailyGeo.

Sources

  • City population and coordinates: DailyGeo's own game data, the same figures the Capitals game plays with. Population follows the urban area rather than the commune, which is why no density is quoted.
  • Temperature and rainfall: ten-year means (2015 to 2024) computed from ERA5 reanalysis, retrieved through Open-Meteo. Hersbach, H., et al. (2020). The ERA5 global reanalysis. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.
  • Elevation: terrain height at the city's coordinates in the Copernicus DEM, read through Open-Meteo rather than taken from a curated claim.
  • Time zone: resolved from the same coordinates.
  • Country figures: the World Bank, latest reported year for each series: Country GDP, GDP per capita, Country population, Life expectancy, Internet users.
  • Founding date: Wikidata, earliest recorded founding claim.
  • This capital elsewhere: Wikipedia, UNdata, Wikidata.
  • Method and limits: How this data was collected explains how each figure was collected and what it does not cover.

The short answer

Windhoek is the capital of Namibia, in Africa, with about 430,000 residents, averaging 15.0 °C from June to August and 23.6 °C from December to February.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the capital of Namibia?

Windhoek is the capital of Namibia. It has about 430,000 residents and lies in Africa.

How many people live in Windhoek?

About 430,000, which ranks Windhoek 141st of the 172 capitals in DailyGeo's atlas by city population.

What is the weather like in Windhoek?

Windhoek averages 15.0 °C from June to August and 23.6 °C from December to February, with 277 mm of precipitation a year. These are ten-year means from ERA5 reanalysis.

How expensive is Windhoek?

GDP per capita in the country is $4,876, the latest year the World Bank reports.

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