Banket, Zimbabwe

Banket, originally Banket Junction, is a town in Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe, about 95 kilometres northwest of Harare on the Harare to Chinhoyi road. Its name comes from the banket conglomerate rock that early settlers hoped would bear gold, as the banket of the Witwatersrand fields did; the rock proved barren, though gold and chromite are mined in the area. The town grew as a service centre for mines and commercial farms producing cattle, maize, cotton and tobacco, and it suffered after chromite mining was scaled back and after the land reform that began in 2000. It has a district hospital, and Mazvikadei Dam lies to the north. The 2002 census counted 9,845 people.