Kathu is a town located in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is recognized as the iron ore capital of the region.
The name Kathu translates to "town under the trees," referring to its location within a Camel Thorn forest. While the phrase was officially coined by an engineer in the early 1990s as part of a tourist marketing drive, it is also anecdotally attributed to a local porridge brewed from powder found in the pods of the Camel Thorn trees.