— — a sandstone capital high on the veld.
“The capital of Lesotho, set on a sandstone shelf above the Caledon River where the country touches South Africa. The streets climb gently, the air is thin enough to feel, and the Basotho Hat — the conical thatched craft house downtown — is the easiest landmark to point at. Beyond the city the Maloti highlands open out to the east.
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Maseru sits on the western edge of Lesotho along the Caledon River (Mohokare in Sesotho), directly across from the South African town of Ladybrand. The Maseru Bridge border post is the country's busiest crossing. At roughly 1,600 metres above sea level, the capital sits below the surrounding highlands, which rise above 3,000 metres to the east. Maseru holds about 330,000 people in the city proper and was founded as a police camp in 1869 under King Moshoeshoe I. It is the only large city in a country defined by its mountains.
The city is built largely from a warm local sandstone quarried in the surrounding hills, which gives much of the older civic core, including the Lesotho High Court and the original parliament, its characteristic honey colour. The Basotho Hat building (Mokorotlo) on Kingsway is shaped after the conical thatched hat worn across the country and houses a craft centre selling Basotho weaving and mohair. The Catholic cathedral of Our Lady of Victories on Cathedral Hill marks the original mission settlement above the river.
Maseru sits at about 1,600 metres, high enough that summer afternoons stay dry and winter mornings can frost. Beyond the city the land lifts quickly into the Maloti Mountains, the highest range in southern Africa, with the country's mean elevation over 2,160 metres — the highest of any sovereign state. Snow falls on the high passes most winters. The Mohale and Katse dam systems in the highlands feed the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which sends water across the border to Gauteng.