Hlotse, the capital of Leribe district, is one of the most important towns in northern Lesotho. It's a lively, practical commercial and farming centre in the northwestern lowlands, and most travellers use it as a base or a stop on the way to the mountains. It isn't a postcard destination in itself, but it has its charm, and it holds a world-famous palaeontological treasure: the dinosaur footprints of the Subeng River.
A few kilometres from the centre, in a stream bed, fossilised dinosaur footprints between 108 and 200 million years old have survived. They're among the most important in a country that is, without exaggeration, one of the world's great sites for dinosaur trackways. The town also keeps traces of its British colonial past, such as an old watchtower, and serves as a gateway to the missions, valleys and dams of the Leribe region.
This guide covers what to see in and around Hlotse, how to reach the Subeng footprints, where to stay and eat, and how to use the town as a springboard to Ts'ehlanyane, Afriski, Katse Dam and the rest of the mountainous north. It's ideal if you're entering Lesotho from South Africa's Free State or coming down from the highlands towards the capital.
Hlotse was founded in 1876 as an Anglican mission station by the Reverend John Widdicombe, and it takes its name from the river of the same name. During the 'Gun War' (1880-1881) between the Basotho and the Cape colonial administration, the town came under siege, and a stone watchtower from that time still stands. Over time it grew into the main centre of the kingdom's north. That story, from colonial mission to market town, is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Maluti range in all its splendour: high-altitude indigenous forests, the region's only ski slope, pony trekking in Malealea and the dinosaur footprints of the north.
Read the history of The north and the Maluti →They depart from Maseru, 73 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before any city existed, the Hlotse region already held a story carved in stone: the story of the dinosaurs. More than 100 million years ago, during the Early Jurassic and the period before it, this part of southern Africa was a vast plain of lakes, rivers and mud, crossed by different species of dinosaurs. Their footprints were pressed into the mud, which over time turned into sandstone and preserved the tracks to this day.
The Subeng River site, a few kilometres from today's centre of Hlotse, was discovered in 1955 and holds the footprints of at least three, and possibly as many as six, different species, some with three toes and others with five. It is one of the many ichnite sites (fossilised footprints) that make Lesotho one of the world's great palaeontological sites of its kind, along with the famous tracks and fossils in the south of the country, in the Quthing region.
Humans arrived on these ancient lands much later: first the San, hunter-gatherers who left their rock art all across the Maloti-Drakensberg massif, and then the Sesotho-speaking peoples who, in the 19th century, would unite as the Basotho nation. The Leribe area, in the fertile lowlands of the northwest, became one of the most populated and agricultural parts of the kingdom.
The town of Hlotse itself was born in 1876, when the Anglican Reverend John Widdicombe founded a mission station there, on the banks of the Hlotse River, which gives the town its name. Like so many other towns in Lesotho, it began as a Christian mission: from the 1830s onwards, missionaries (French Protestants from the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, Catholics and Anglicans) played a central role in the kingdom's history.
Those missions did much more than evangelise. They introduced writing for the Sesotho language, founded the first schools and printing presses, and left an architectural mark of churches and stone buildings that still shapes the historic centres of towns such as Hlotse, Morija and Roma. King Moshoeshoe I, founder of the Basotho nation, had deliberately invited the missionaries to help him modernise and strengthen his kingdom against outside threats.
In that setting, Widdicombe's mission turned Hlotse into a centre of education and religion in northern Basutoland. A town grew up around the mission, and thanks to its location in the fertile lowlands, on the routes towards the interior and the South African border, it soon took on a commercial and administrative role as well.
Hlotse's most dramatic chapter came in the early 1880s, during the 'Gun War' (1880-1881). At the time, Basutoland was administered by the British Cape Colony, which tried to impose a disarmament law on the Basotho, forcing them to hand over the firearms they had legally acquired by working in the region's mines and farms.
The Basotho resisted firmly: for them, guns were a symbol of status and a guarantee of autonomy, and giving them up meant submitting. War broke out between the Cape colonial forces and the Basotho warriors, many of them on horseback and with expert knowledge of the mountainous terrain. As a mission and administrative post, Hlotse was besieged during the conflict, and a stone watchtower from that time still stands in the town.
The war essentially ended in a draw, but it was a political victory for the Basotho: it showed that the Cape Colony could not control them. As a result, in 1884 Basutoland came under the direct administration of the British Crown as a protectorate, instead of the Cape. That decision had enormous historical consequences: when the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, Basutoland was left out of it, which allowed it to reach independence in 1966 as a country of its own rather than being absorbed by South Africa.
Over the 20th century, Hlotse grew into the main town of northern Lesotho and the seat of Leribe district, one of the most populated and agricultural areas of the country. Its location on the A1 road and next to the busy Ficksburg/Maputsoe border crossing with South Africa's Free State made it a commercial hub: goods, workers and travellers pass through here between Lesotho and South Africa.
Like that of the whole kingdom, the region's economy was historically tied to migration: for generations, thousands of men from Leribe district worked in South Africa's gold mines and farms, and their remittances supported their families. The decline of mining in recent decades hit the area hard, and today agriculture, cross-border trade, the textile industry in Maputsoe and, to a lesser extent, tourism are the pillars of the economy.
For travellers, Hlotse today is above all a practical base and a slice of authentic Lesotho: the town where you fill up on fuel and supplies before heading up into the Maluti mountains, visit the Subeng dinosaur footprints, see the old Gun War tower and get a feel for everyday Basotho life. A stopover with more history than it seems at first glance.
