open-pit uranium mine, largest (in area) of its kind in the world, located in the extremely arid Namib Desert of Namibia, about 25 miles (40 km) northeast of the small Atlantic port of Swakopmund. Prospecting in the 1960s led to the development of the mine, financed by British, South African, French, and Canadian interests. It was opened in 1976 and by itself has made Namibia, in terms of tonnage, one of the largest producers of uranium in the world. A town was not developed at the mine site; workers are housed in Swakopmund.