What is "camptown"

A Camptown, in the country of Lesotho, refers to a district capital for one of the ten districts of Lesotho. The largest camptown is the city of Maseru in Maseru District. Camptowns are usually commerce hubs for the district and are the location for the central government offices for the district. Camptowns usually take the same name as the district in which they are located. For example, as mentioned the camptown for Maseru is Maseru but also the camptown for Thaba-Tseka District is Thaba-Tseka. The exceptions to this rule are Berea District whose capital is called Teyateyaneng, Quthing District whose capital is called Moyeni and Leribe District whose capital is most often called Hlotse.

It presumably derives from the 19th century police camps, then (now archaic) in Sesotho likampo. Official colonial government terminology was government reserve, which prosaically became urban area post-independence.

Category:Subdivisions of Lesotho Category:Types of country subdivisions

Camptown may refer to:

• Camptown, Scottish Borders
• Camptown (country subdivision), a provincial capital in Lesotho
• Camptown Races, a folk song
• Camptown, Korean prostitution camps serving US forces after World War II (see Prostitutes in South Korea for the U.S. military)
• Camptown FC, a Guyanese football club that plays in the GFF National Super League
• Camptown, early United States communities of "Negro labourers and transients" living in shacks and tents thrown up along the edges of frontier towns. (citation: Richard Jackson (Ed.). 1974. Stephen Foster Song Book: original sheet music of 40 songs. Courier Dover Publications. p. 174.)