121-593: CapeNature (officially the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board ) is a governmental organisation responsible for maintaining wilderness areas and public nature reserves in Western Cape Province, South Africa . This article about South African government is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Western Cape The Western Cape ( Afrikaans : Wes-Kaap [ˈvɛskɑːp] ; Xhosa : iNtshona-Koloni )
242-499: A 1.6 km thick layer basaltic lava, but it also forced its way, under high pressure, between the horizontal layers of sedimentary rocks belonging to the Ecca and Beaufort groups, to solidify into dolerite sills . The long vertical fissures through which the lava welled up solidified into dikes which resemble the Great Wall of China from the air. From about 150 million years ago
363-644: A government, and Morkel remained Premier. In 2000 the DP and the NNP formalised their coalition by forming the Democratic Alliance (DA). In 2001, however, the NNP broke with the DA over the removal of Peter Marais from office as Mayor of Cape Town by DA leader Tony Leon . The NNP instead went into coalition with the ANC; Gerald Morkel, who was opposed to the split, resigned as Premier and
484-467: A horse.) They were consequently also easy prey for hunters, who hunted them for sport rather than their meat. By the middle of the 1800s, they were almost extinct, and in 1883, the last one died in an Amsterdam zoo. Probably the strangest and most puzzling zoological phenomenon in the Great Karoo was the periodic, unpredictable appearance of massive springbok migrations. These migrations always came from
605-455: A lack of fresh water in the region meant that it has only recently been used as a harbour. The province's main harbour was built in Table Bay , which in its natural state was fully exposed to the northwesterly storms that bring rain to the province in winter, as well as the almost uninterrupted dry southeasterly winds in summer. But fresh water coming off Table Mountain and Devil's Peak allowed
726-744: A long tradition of holding liberal values. For example, the Cape Qualified Franchise before the Union of South Africa. The Cape Qualified Franchise was the system of non-racial franchise that was adhered to in the Cape Colony , and in the Cape Province in the early years of the Union of South Africa . Qualifications for the right to vote at parliamentary elections were applied equally to all men, regardless of race. This local system of multi-racial suffrage
847-630: A place of great heat and frosts, and an annual rainfall of between 50 and 250 mm, though on some of the mountains it can be 250 to 500 mm higher than on the plains. However, underground water is found throughout the Karoo, which can be tapped by boreholes, making permanent settlements and sheep farming possible. The xerophytic vegetation consists of aloes , mesembryanthemums , crassulas , euphorbias , stapelias , and desert ephemerals , spaced 50 cm or more apart, and becoming very sparse going northwards into Bushmanland and, from there, into
968-601: A social movement for political consciousness. In December 1968, the South African Student Organization (SASO) was formed at a conference held in Marianhill, Natal. The conference was exclusively attended by Black students. After its launch, SASO became the medium through which black consciousness ideology spread to schools and other university campuses across the country. In 1974, South African Minister of Bantu Education and Development MC Botha, constituted
1089-439: A spring or other water source within their territory. Sometimes these territories were very large and the family group moved from one part to the other. Their only domestic animals were dogs. The Ntu -speaking agriculturalists to the east of the Great Karoo did not occupy this arid region due to the scarce rainfall which prevented the farming of cattle. In 1854, Daniel Halladay invented the multibladed windpump (windmill) in
1210-587: A time when that part of Gondwana which would eventually become Africa, lay over the South Pole. Icebergs that had calved off the glaciers and ice sheets to the north deposited a 1 km-thick layer of mud containing dropstones of varying origins and sizes into this basin. This became the Dwyka Group consisting primarily of tillite , the lowermost layer of the Karoo Supergroup. As Gondwana drifted northwards,
1331-664: A titanic scale, which brought an end to a flourishing reptile evolution. These genera represent some of the extinct, mainly predinosaur, animals of the Karoo: Karoo Koppies hills are capped by hard, erosion-resistant dolerite sills . This is solidified lava that was forced under high pressure between the horizontal strata of the sedimentary rocks that make up most of the Karoo's geology . This occurred about 180 million years ago, when huge volumes of lava were extruded over most of Southern Africa and adjoining regions of Gondwana, both on
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#17328765602071452-516: A tourist destination. This area was explored by European settlers in the late 17th century, who encountered the Khoisan people as the original inhabitants of this area. The latter called the Swartberg Mountains kango meaning "a place rich in water". The Cango Caves in the Swartberg Mountains are named after this Khoisan word. The Klein Karoo, and especially Oudtshoorn, became synonymous with
1573-456: A well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils. The ǃ’Aukarob formed an almost impenetrable barrier to the interior from Cape Town, and the early adventurers, explorers, hunters, and travelers on the way to the Highveld unanimously denounced it as a frightening place of great heat, great frosts, great floods, and great droughts. Today, it is still
1694-428: Is a province of South Africa , situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of 129,449 square kilometres (49,981 sq mi), and the third most populous , with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020. About two-thirds of these inhabitants live in the metropolitan area of Cape Town , which is also the provincial capital. The Western Cape
1815-593: Is a well-watered area both from the rain and the many streams that cascade down the mountain, or through narrow defiles in the Swartberg from the Great Karoo. The main towns of the region are situated along this northern strip of the Klein Karoo: Montagu , Barrydale , Ladismith , Calitzdorp , Oudtshoorn , and De Rust , as well as such well-known mission stations such as Zoar , Amalienstein , and Dysselsdorp . The southern 30– to 50 km-wide strip, north of
1936-481: Is best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. The Upper Karoo is indeed an ideal site for an astronomical observatory. This is not only because of the clear skies, absence of artificial lights, and high altitude, but also because it is tectonically completely inactive (meaning that there are no fault lines or volcanoes nearby, and no earth tremors or earthquakes occur, even at great distances). The Klein Karoo
2057-597: Is bordered on the north by the Northern Cape and on the east by the Eastern Cape . The total land area of the province is 129,462 square kilometres (49,986 sq mi), about 10.6% of the country's total. It is roughly the size of England or the State of Louisiana . Its capital city and largest city is Cape Town , and some other major cities include Stellenbosch , Worcester , Paarl , and George . The Garden Route and
2178-508: Is considered, by convention, to form the approximate arbitrary eastern extremity of the Klein Karoo. Its extent is much smaller than that of the Great Karoo. It is called the Klein Karoo , which is Afrikaans for Little Karoo. The Great Karoo straddles the 30° S parallel on the west of the continent, in a similar position to other semidesert areas on earth, north and south of the equator. It
2299-542: Is dominated by Karoo drought-resistant shrubbery . The West Coast and Little Karoo are semi-arid regions and are typified by many species of succulents and drought-resistant shrubs and acacia trees. The Garden Route on the south coast (between the Outeniqua Mountains and the Southern Indian Ocean ) is extremely lush, with temperate rainforest (or Afromontane Forest ) covering many areas adjacent to
2420-733: Is furthermore in the rainfall shadow of the Cape Fold Mountains along the western coastline. The western "Lower Karoo" (the Tankwa Karoo and Moordenaarskaroo) contain remnants of the Cape Fold Mountains (e.g. the Witteberg and Anysberg Mountains) which give it a moderate hilly appearance, but further east, the Lower Karoo becomes a monotonously flat plain. The "Upper Karoo" has been intruded by dolerite sills (see below), creating multiple flat-topped hills, or Karoo Koppies, which are iconic of
2541-473: Is located entirely on the central plateau mostly at altitudes between 1000 and 1500 m. It incorporates nearly the whole of the historical and geographical Great Karoo, but also includes a portion of southern Namibia's Namaqualand, and South Africa's Bushmanland (both local geographical names, not names of biomes). It is the second-largest biome in South Africa, and forms the botanical transition between
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#17328765602072662-526: Is separated from the Great Karoo by the Swartberg Mountain range. Geographically, it is a 290 km-long valley, only 40–60 km wide, formed by two parallel Cape Fold Mountain ranges, the Swartberg to the north, and the continuous Langeberg - Outeniqua range to the south. The northern strip of the valley, within 10–20 km from the foot of the Swartberg mountains is least karoo-like, in that it
2783-615: Is the Swartberg Pass between Oudtshoorn in the Klein Karoo and Prince Albert on the other side of the Swartberg mountains in the Great Karoo. Also, the main road between Oudtshoorn and George, on the coastal plain, crosses the mountains to the south via the Outeniqua Pass . The only exit from the Klein Karoo that does not involve crossing a mountain range is through the 150 km-long, narrow Langkloof valley between Uniondale and Humansdorp, near Plettenberg Bay . In geological terms,
2904-413: The 2004 election , there was again no absolute winner in the provincial parliament; this time the ANC won 19 seats, the DA won 12, and the NNP won 5. The ANC-NNP coalition continued in power, but van Schalkwyk took up a ministerial post in the national cabinet and was replaced as Premier by the ANC's Ebrahim Rasool . The NNP was finally dissolved after the 2005 floor-crossing period and its members joined
3025-512: The Calvinia magisterial district, in particular, contributing a significant number of fighters to the Republican cause. Fought both conventionally and as a guerrilla struggle over the Karoo's vast expanses, it was a bloody war of attrition wherein both sides used newly developed technologies to their advantage. Numerous abandoned blockhouses can still be seen at strategic locations, especially along
3146-619: The House of Assembly in 1960. Coloured voters similarly followed in 1958 and 1970 , respectively. The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960. The BCM represented
3267-672: The Kalahari Desert . The driest region of the Karoo, however, is its southwestern corner, between the Great Escarpment and the Cederberg-Skurweberg mountain ranges , called the Tankwa Karoo , which receives only 75 mm of rain annually. The eastern and north-eastern Karoo are often covered by large patches of grassland. The typical Karoo vegetation used to support large game, sometimes in vast herds. Today, sheep thrive on
3388-643: The Karoo Supergroup refers to an extensive and geologically recent (180–310 million years old) sequence of sedimentary and igneous rocks, which is flanked to the south by the Cape Fold Mountains , and to the north by the more ancient Ventersdorp Lavas, the Transvaal Supergroup and Waterberg Supergroup . It covers two-thirds of South Africa and extends in places to 8000 m below the land surface, constituting an immense volume of rocks which
3509-671: The Malmesbury Group that forms the base of Table Mountain on the Cape Peninsula , and similar outcrops in the Western Cape . In the Klein Karoo, the outcrop is composed of limestone , into which an underground stream has carved the impressively extensive Cango Caves . The World Wildlife Fund has classified the Great Karoo and Klein Karoo as almost entirely within two of what they consider South Africa's eight botanical biomes , they have coined their biomes succulent Karoo and
3630-586: The Nama Karoo , although both, like the geological Karoo Supergroup , are more extensive than the geographical or historical Karoo described in South African atlases and guide books (compare the map on the right with the map at the beginning of the article). The succulent Karoo biome runs along the West Coast , from approximately Lamberts Bay northwards to over 200 km into southern Namibia . It starts in
3751-603: The Overberg are popular coastal tourism areas. The Western Cape is the southernmost region of the African continent with Cape Agulhas as its southernmost point, only 3,800 kilometres (2,400 mi) from the Antarctic coastline. The coastline varies from sandy between capes, to rocky to steep and mountainous in places. The only natural harbour is Saldanha Bay on the west coast, about 140 kilometres (90 mi) north of Cape Town. However
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3872-554: The Overberg on the south coast have a maritime climate with cool, moist winters and mild, moist summers. Mossel Bay in the Garden Route is considered to have the second mildest climate worldwide after Hawaii. The La Niña phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle tends to increase rainfall in this region in the dry season (November to April). The effects of El Niño on rainfall in southern Africa differ between
3993-686: The Referendum Party , Freedom Front Plus and organisations such as the Cape Independence Advocacy Group and CapeXit, wish to bring forth the constitutional and peaceful secession of the Western Cape. Proponents claim substantial support for the idea, with CapeXit having over 800,000 signed mandates in May 2021. Additionally, a poll conducted in 2023 by Victory Research on behalf of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group claimed that 58% of
4114-649: The Tankwa Karoo and Moordenaarskaroo regions of the Lower Karoo, and adjoining Upper Karoo region of the geographic Great Karoo. It also occurs to the south, in part of the Breede River Valley , as the Robertson Karoo . From here, it continues eastwards into the western half of the Klein Karoo. The succulent Karoo biome is dominated by dwarf, leafy-succulent shrubs, and annuals, predominantly Asteraceae , popularly known as Namaqualand daisies, which put on spectacular flower displays covering vast stretches of
4235-516: The University of the Western Cape (UWC) and the University of Cape Town (UCT) organised marches. Poster parades by UWC and Black Power Salute marches by UCT was broken by the police, resulting in 73 students getting arrested and detained at Victor Verster Prison , near Paarl. On 1 September 1976, the unrest spread to the city of Cape Town itself. Approximately 2000 black students from Western Cape townships, namely Langa, Nyanga and Gugulethu, matched
4356-465: The fynbos biome to the south and the savannah biome to the north. It is defined primarily by the dominance of dwarf (less than 1 m high) shrubs with a co-dominance of grasses especially towards the north-east and east where it grades into the grassland biome of the highveld and the Eastern Midlands. The shrubs and grasses are deciduous, mainly in response to the irregular rainfall. Much of
4477-451: The martial eagle (3.0–6.2 kg) are arguably the largest predators likely to be seen in the Great Karoo today. Leopards (20–90 kg) do occur, especially in the mountains, but are very secretive, so are rarely seen. Many of the animals that formerly inhabited the Karoo in large numbers, including lions, have been reintroduced to the area in nature reserves and game farms. As in the Great Karoo, antelope and other big game inhabited
4598-554: The national constitution ; these responsibilities include agriculture, education, environment, health services, housing, language policies, tourism, trade, and welfare. The provincial parliament also elects the Premier of the Western Cape to lead the provincial executive. Alan Winde , a member of the DA and former Provincial Minister of Community Safety, has served as Premier since the 2019 provincial election . The Premier appoints ten members of
4719-553: The "R" roads which connect the smaller towns. All major roads are tarred with major rural gravel roads well maintained. Limited access motorways are limited to the Cape Metropolitan Area, Winelands and Garden Route, however due to the low population density of the remainder of the province, the highways remain efficient and high-speed, except during peak holiday travel seasons, when travel can be slow-going in places due to heavy traffic. The 2022 South African census recorded
4840-582: The 1860s, a farmer in the Graaff-Reinet district was apparently the first person to demonstrate that the ostrich could successfully be domesticated, bred in captivity, and the eggs hatched in incubators, while still producing the magnificent feathers. This idea was quickly adopted by farmers in the Little Karoo, where they started growing lucerne as the birds' favorite food. During 1880, no less than 74,000 kg of feathers were exported, and in 1904, it passed
4961-415: The 210,000-kg mark. The First World War brought about a slump in the ostrich feather market, but the industry recovered in later years, when not only the feathers were sought after, but also ostrich leather, and its meat, which is very tasty, and a major export item. Today, several farms can be visited by tourists, near Oudtshoorn, the center of the ostrich industry. The first European settlers landed in
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5082-499: The ANC, again giving that party an absolute majority of 24 seats. In the 2007 floor-crossing period the ANC gained a further three members of the provincial parliament. In 2008 Rasool resigned as Premier due to internal party politics, and was replaced by Lynne Brown . The 2009 election marked a significant change in Western Cape politics, as the Democratic Alliance won 51% of the votes and an absolute majority of 22 seats in
5203-576: The African interior following the bulging of the continent during the massive lava outpourings that ended the Karoo sedimentation 180 million years ago, some of the eroded material was trapped in the valleys of the Cape Fold Mountains, especially during the Cretaceous period , about 145 million years ago to 66 million years ( Ma ) ago. These "Enon Conglomerates ", as they are known, were deposited by high energy, fast flowing rivers, and are found between Calitzdorp and Oudtshoorn, where they form
5324-562: The Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ǃ’Aukarob "Hard veld " ) is a semi- desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is also not precisely defined. The Karoo is partly defined by its topography, geology and climate, and above all, its low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and extremes of heat and cold. The Karoo also hosted
5445-596: The Beaufort period, Southern Africa (still part of Gondwana) became an arid sand desert with only ephemeral rivers and pans. These sands consolidated to form the Stormberg Group , the remnants of which are found only in the immediate vicinity of Lesotho. Several dinosaur nests, containing eggs, some with dinosaur fetal skeletons in them, have been found in these rocks, near what had once been a swampy pan. Finally, about 180 million years ago, volcanic activity took place on
5566-465: The Camdeboo district, but no records exist of any having been seen alive in that region. The quagga roamed the Karoo in great numbers together with wildebeest and ostriches , which always seemed to accompany them. These quagga seemed gentle and easy to domesticate. (A pair of quagga was used to draw a horse carriage through London, more for curiosity than for any superiority the quagga might have had over
5687-615: The Cape Town area. According to a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the Western Cape experienced the second highest number of deaths and casualties associated with the 1976 uprising protests. In 1994, at the introduction of the Interim Constitution and the first non-racial election , South Africa's original provinces and bantustans were abolished and nine new provinces were established. The former Cape Province
5808-460: The Cape Town central business district (CBD). Coloured students also contributed to the protests by peacefully marching to the city, but were blockaded by the police in the CBD. The protests turned violent when coloured students started burning schools, libraries and a magistrate's court in support of the student revolt. Thereafter, 200,000 coloured workers partook in a two-day strike staying away from work in
5929-459: The Cape of Good Hope in 1652, and between 1659 and 1664, made several unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the Great Karoo from the south-west. The Europeans who first entered the Great Karoo did so from the south-east (traveling north from Algoa Bay ), which is slightly less arid than the western Karoo. These were the trekboers of the mid-1700s, who led a nomadic existence, enduring great hardships in
6050-720: The Great Escarpment along a broad valley to Three Sisters on the Central Plateau and the Upper Karoo. Turning north from the N1 between Touws River and Beaufort West, at Matjiesfontein , the road ascends the Great Escarpment through the Verlatenkloof Pass to reach Sutherland , at 1456 m above sea level, which is reputedly the coldest town in South Africa with average minimum temperatures of −6.1 °C during winter. Parts of
6171-624: The Great Karoo. Great locust swarms also frequently invaded or arose in the Great Karoo, and still occur from time to time today. The riverine rabbit , a critically endangered animal, lives exclusively in seasonal river basins and a very particular set of scrubland in the central semiarid region in the Karoo. It is hunted by falconiformes and Verreaux's eagles . Its numbers have been consistently lowering due to destruction of its habitat. They are unique relative to similar species through how they are polygamous and how each female can only produce one or two offspring per year. The introduction of
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#17328765602076292-551: The Great Karoo. The vegetation of the Upper is similar to the Lower Karoo, so few people make a distinction between the two. The main highway (the N1) and railway line from Cape Town to the north enter the Lower Karoo from the Hex River Valley just before Touws River and follow a course about 50 km south of the Great Escarpment up to Beaufort West . Thereafter, they gradually ascend
6413-402: The Great Karoo. Further branch lines were later built from points further north to Bloemfontein , Durban , and, of course, to Johannesburg . During the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, three Republican commando units, reinforced by the sympathizers ("rebels") from the Cape Colony , conducted widespread operations throughout the Karoo. Countless skirmishes took place in the region, with
6534-413: The Highveld. The boundary to the east grades into the grasslands of the Eastern Midlands. The Great Karoo is itself divided by the Great Escarpment into the Upper Karoo (generally above 1200–1500 m) and the Lower Karoo on the plains below at 700–800 m. A great many local names, each denoting different subregions of the Great Karoo, exist, some more widely, or more generally, known than others. In
6655-407: The Klein Karoo bears no resemblance to that of the Great Karoo (see the diagram on the left, of a NS geological cross-section through the Klein and Great Karoos). The valley is an integral part of the Cape Fold Mountain Belt, with the two ranges on either side composed of extremely hard, erosion-resistant, quartzitic sandstone belonging to the 450- to 510-million-year-old Table Mountain Group (i.e.
6776-478: The Klein Karoo in the past. However, the dominant zebra was not the quagga, but the Cape mountain zebra , ( Equus zebra zebra ) which is adapted for life on rugged, mountainous terrain. Their hooves are harder and faster-growing than those of Burchell's zebra ( Equus quagga burchellii ), which lives on the plains. The two species are, therefore, rarely seen in the same habitat. The quagga is closely related to Burchell's zebra, and appears also to have been confined to
6897-413: The Langeberg range, is as arid as the western Lower Karoo, except in the east, where the Langeberg range (arbitrarily) starts to be called the Outeniqua Mountains. The Klein Karoo can only be accessed by road through the narrow defiles cut through the surrounding Cape Fold Mountains by ancient, but still flowing, rivers. A few roads traverse the mountains over passes, the most famous and impressive of which
7018-404: The Lower Karoo through the Hex River valley , where it followed a course almost midway between the Swartberg Mountains to the south and the Great Escarpment to the north. Along the way, it passed through the quaint Victorian village of Matjiesfontein , with the historic Lord Milner Hotel, which is still operational today. The railway reached this point in 1878, before proceeding to Beaufort West at
7139-462: The Lower Karoo, going from west to east, they are the Tankwa Karoo , the Moordenaarskaroo, the Koup, the Vlakte, and the Camdeboo Plains . The Hantam, Kareeberge, Roggeveld, and uweveldare the better known subregions of the Upper Karoo, though most of it is simply known as the Upper Karoo, especially in the north. The Klein Karoo's boundaries are sharply defined by mountain ranges to the west, north, and south. The road between Uniondale and Willowmore
7260-430: The Nama Karoo biome is that the former receives the little rain that falls as cyclonic rainfall in winter, which has less erosive power than the infrequent but violent summer thunderstorms of the Nama Karoo. Frost is also less common in the succulent Karoo biome than in the Nama Karoo biome. The number of mainly succulent plant species is very high for an arid area of this size anywhere in the world. The Nama Karoo biome
7381-411: The Nama Karoo biome is used for sheep and goat farming, providing mutton, wool, and pelts for local and international markets, especially since livestock can frequently be provided with a regular supply of water from boreholes. Overgrazing exacerbates the erosion caused by the violent thunderstorms that occur, infrequently, in the summer. It also promotes the replacement of the grasses by shrubs, especially
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#17328765602077502-459: The Province's most inland boundary. The escarpment marks the southwestern edge of South Africa's central plateau (see the middle and bottom diagrams on the left). It runs parallel to the entire South African coastline, except in the very far northeast, where it is interrupted by the Limpopo River valley, and in the far northwest, where it is interrupted by the Orange River valley. The 1,000-kilometre-long (620 mi) northeastern stretch of
7623-438: The Provincial Treasury. Politically, the Western Cape is a stronghold for the Democratic Alliance (DA). The DA has won an absolute majority of the vote in the province in every national, provincial, and municipal election since 2009 . The Western Cape Province is divided into one metropolitan municipality and five district municipalities . The district municipalities are in turn divided into 24 local municipalities . In
7744-424: The South African surface has been subjected to an almost uninterrupted period of erosion, particularly during the past 20 million years, shaving off many kilometers of sediments. This exposed the dolerite sills, which were more resistant to erosion than the Karoo sediments, forming one of the most characteristic features of the Karoo landscape, namely the flat topped hills, called "Karoo Koppies". The geology of
7865-412: The Swartberg. The only sharp and definite boundary of the Great Karoo is formed by the most inland ranges of Cape Fold Mountains to the south and south-west. The extent of the Karoo to the north is vague, fading gradually and almost imperceptibly into the increasingly arid Bushmanland towards the north-west. To the north and north-east, it fades into the savannah and grasslands of Griqualand West and
7986-408: The USA. It was perfected in 1883, and soon South Africa (and elsewhere) produced them in large numbers. These windpumps transformed the Great Karoo, making permanent settlement and stock farming (predominantly sheep) possible over large parts of the Karoo for the first time. Like the Karoo Koppie, the multibladed windpump became an iconic feature of the Great Karoo. Sheep farming and the fencing off of
8107-756: The Western Cape's GDP. 95% of wine produced in South Africa is produced in the Western Cape. South Africa is the 7th largest wine producing region in the world. The Western Cape has an excellent network of highways comparable with any first-world country. The primary highways are the N1 (from Cape Town to Three Sisters , continuing outside the province towards Bloemfontein and Johannesburg ), N2 (from Cape Town to Bloukrans River, towards Port Elizabeth ), N7 (from Cape Town to Bitterfontein, continuing towards Springbok and Namibia ), N9 (from George to Uniondale, continuing towards Graaff-Reinet and Colesberg ) and N12 (from George to Three Sisters, continuing towards Kimberley and Johannesburg). Other routes are
8228-422: The Western Cape's registered voters would support independence, while 68% would support a referendum on the issue. The provincial government is established under the Constitution of the Western Cape , which was adopted in 1998. The people of the province elect the 42-member Western Cape Provincial Parliament every five years by a system of party-list proportional representation . The sixth provincial parliament
8349-444: The basin turned into an inland sea with extensive swampy deltas along its northern shores. The peat in these swamps eventually turned into large deposits of coal which are mined in KwaZulu-Natal and on the Highveld. This 3 km-thick layer is known as the Ecca Group , which is overlain by the 5.6 km-thick Beaufort Group , laid down on a vast plain with Mississippi-like rivers depositing mud from an immense range of mountains to
8470-403: The beginning nor end of the moving mass. In 1849, a massive herd of springbok, amongst which were intermingled wildebeest, blesbok , quagga, and eland , moved through Beaufort West. Early one morning, the town was awakened to a sound like that of a strong wind, and suddenly the town was filled with animals. They devoured every sprig of foliage in the town and surrounding countryside. The last of
8591-449: The biggest sector in the Western Cape's economy is the financial, business services and real estate sector, which constitutes 33.55% of gross value added, followed by manufacturing at 14.26% and wholesale and retail trade, hotels, and restaurants at 13.67%. High-tech industries, international call centres, fashion design, advertising and TV production are niche industries rapidly gaining in importance. Cape Town accounts for roughly 73% of
8712-536: The coast, in the deep river valleys and along the southern slopes of the Outeniqua mountain range. Typical species are hardwoods of exceptional height, such as Yellowwood , Stinkwood and Ironwood trees. The Western Cape is climatologically diverse, with many distinct micro- and macroclimates created by the varied topography and the influence of the surrounding ocean currents. These are the warm Agulhas Current which flows southwards along South Africa's east coast, and
8833-626: The cold Benguela Current which is an upwelling current from the depths of the South Atlantic Ocean along South Africa's west coast. Thus climatic statistics can vary greatly over short distances. Most of the province is considered to have a Mediterranean climate with cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers. Both the Great Karoo and Little Karoo , in the interior, have an arid to semi-arid climate with cold, frosty winters and hot summers with occasional thunderstorms . The Garden Route and
8954-415: The continuously moving herd left the town 3 days later, to disappear towards the west. The Karoo looked as if a fire had swept through it. During these migrations, the plains and hillsides on every side were thickly covered by one vast mass of springbok, packed like sheep in a fold. As far as the eye could see, the landscape was alive with them. During these migrations, the springbok never ran or trotted. On
9075-545: The early European settlers to build Cape Town on the shores of this less than satisfactory anchorage. The province is topographically exceptionally diverse. Most of the province falls within the Cape Fold Belt , a set of nearly parallel ranges of sandstone folded mountains of Cambrian - Ordovician age (the age of the rocks is from 510 to about 330 million years ago; their folding into mountains occurred about 350 to about 270 million years ago). The height of
9196-522: The east. Francois Le Vaillant , the famous French explorer, naturalist, and ornithologist, who traveled through the Great Karoo in the 1780s, killed a hippopotamus in the Great Fish River in the Karoo (and ate its foot for breakfast). He also recorded that he saw the spoor of a rhinoceros near Cranemere, in the Camdeboo Plains (eastern Lower Karoo). Elephant tusks have been found by farmers in
9317-492: The eastern Mpumalangan Highveld do at times experience lower temperatures than Sutherland, but not as consistently as Sutherland does. Snowfalls are not infrequent during the southern winter months. The South African Astronomical Observatory has an emplacement of telescopes about 20 km east of the town, on a small plateau 1798 m above sea level, and is home to the Southern African Large Telescope ,
9438-472: The entire United Kingdom. It is characterised by various types of shrubs, thousands of herbaceous flowering plant species and some grasses. With the exception of the Silver tree, Leucadendron argenteum , which only grows on the granite and clay soils of the Cape Peninsula , open fynbos is generally treeless except in the wetter mountain ravines where patches of Afromontane forest persist. The arid interior
9559-675: The escarpment is called the Drakensberg , which is geographically and geologically quite distinct from the Cape Fold Mountains , which originated much earlier and totally independently of the origin of the escarpment. The principal rivers of the province are the Berg and Olifants which drain into the Atlantic Ocean, and the Breede and Gourits which drain into the Indian Ocean. The vegetation of
9680-489: The expected changes. Thunderstorms are generally rare in the province (except in the Karoo ) with most precipitation being of a frontal or orographic nature. Extremes of heat and cold are common inland, but rare near the coast. Snow is a common winter occurrence on the Western Cape Mountains occasionally reaching down into the more inland valleys. Otherwise, frost is relatively rare in coastal areas and many of
9801-417: The following interactive map, the district and metropolitan municipalities are labelled in capital letters and shaded in various different colours. Clicking on the district on the map loads the appropriate article: As of the third quarter of 2023, the Western Cape's total real GDP was R 656.27 billion, which equaled 14.2% of South Africa's total GDP, and real GDP per capita was R90,571. The Western Cape has
9922-576: The foot of the Great Escarpment. From there, it reached the top of the African Plateau near Three Sisters along a valley with such a low gradient that passengers were (and still are) hardly aware that they were ascending the Great Escarpment. From there it continued through the Upper Karoo, to De Aar , and crossed the Orange River at Hopetown , where South Africa's first diamond, the Eureka Diamond ,
10043-770: The heavily cultivated valleys. The Hon Alan Winde MMP The Seventh Provincial Parliament Speaker Daylin Mitchell MMP Deputy Speaker Reagan Allen MMP Chief Whip of the Majority Party Gillon Bosman MMP Leader of the Opposition Khalid Sayed MMP Chief Whip of the Official Opposition Ayanda Bans MMP Municipal: The Cape has had
10164-549: The imposition of using Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in black schools, effective with students in Grade 7 (Standard 5) upwards. As early as March 1976, students began passive resistance against Afrikaans, fueling the outbreak of the Soweto Uprising on 16 June 1976. Consequently, the student protests spread to other parts of the country, and Cape Town became a pivotal site for Western Cape student revolt. Student leaders at
10285-427: The independence of the "Sovereign State of Good Hope". In the 2019 election , the DA retained their majority in the province, but with a reduction in support. It had won 24 seats with 55%. Helen Zille was term-limited and the DA premier candidate Alan Winde succeeded her. The ANC also lost support. It had received 12 seats with 28% support, its lowest showing since 1994. Veteran politician Peter Marais returned to
10406-538: The land have meant that antelope numbers have dwindled significantly, and with them, the big carnivores. Leopards still occur in the mountains, but lions now only occur in nature reserves, where they have been recently reintroduced into the Great Karoo. In 1872, construction was started to connect the Cape Colony 's coastal railway system with the diamond fields in Kimberley , The new line started in Worcester and entered
10527-480: The landscape in the southern spring-time (August–September) after good rains in the winter. Grasses are uncommon, making most of the biome unsuitable for grazing. The low rainfall, in fact, discourages most forms of agriculture. An exception is the thriving ostrich-farming industry in the KLein Karoo, which is heavily dependent on supplementary feeding with lucerne . The difference between the succulent Karoo biome and
10648-575: The largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. To the north, still on the Plateau, and 75 km north-west of Carnarvon , seven radio dishes form part of the Square Kilometer Array which will, 2500 in total, be scattered in other parts of South Africa and Australia, to survey the southern skies at radio frequencies. Our galaxy , the Milky Way , one of the main targets of this enterprise,
10769-458: The less edible varieties such as the threethorn ( Rhigozum trichotomum ), bitterbos ( Chrysocoma ciliata ), and sweet thorn ( Acacia karroo ). However, there are few rare or Red Data Book plant species in the Nama Karoo biome. The Great Karoo used to support a large variety of antelope (particularly the springbok ), the quagga , and other large game, especially on the grassy flats in
10890-816: The most well-known of these being the Mountain Zebra National Park near Cradock in the Great Karoo. Cape mountain zebras are still found in protected areas managed by Cape Nature, including the Kamanassie and Gamkaberg Nature Reserves . The ostrich is found throughout Africa, but the most handsome specimens came from the Klein Karoo, where the dry weather, but plentiful water in the streams formed an ideal habitat for these large, flightless birds. Here, they grow to over 2 m in height, and weigh over 100 kg. The male's feathers have been prized by many cultures in Africa, Europe, and Asia over thousands of years. In
11011-472: The mountain peaks in the different ranges varies from 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) to 2,300 metres (7,500 ft). The valleys between ranges are generally very fertile, as they contain the weathered loamy soils of the Bokkeveld mudstones (see the diagrams below). The far interior forms part of the Karoo . This region of the province is generally arid and hilly, with a prominent escarpment that runs close to
11132-474: The north, and could either go west towards Namaqualand and the sea, south-west through towns such as Beaufort West , or south through the Camdeboo district. These vast herds moved steadily and inexorably across the plains, trampling all before them, including their own kind. Le Vaillant gave the first eyewitness account of such a migration in 1782. He rode through the herd filling the Plains of Camdeboo, seeing neither
11253-522: The oldest layer of the Cape Supergroup). The valley floor is covered, in the main, by the next (younger) layer of the Supergroup, namely the much softer Bokkeveld shales. The dolerite of the Great Karoo did not penetrate these rocks, so Karoo Koppies are not seen in the Klein Karoo. The Klein Karoo contains two other geological features that give the landscape a special character. During the erosion of
11374-418: The ostrich feathers from the Klein Karoo's ostrich farms could be exported to Europe. That line is no longer in use today. The Swartberg Pass was built, with convict labor, between 1881 and 1888 by Thomas Bain , son of the famous Andrew Geddes Bain , who built Bain's Kloof Pass and many others in the Western Cape. The main motivation for building the pass was to provide an all-weather road connection between
11495-576: The ostrich-feather industry in the 1880s. The resulting "feather millionaires" built Victorian "Feather Palaces" all over town, using the red rocks belonging to the Enon Conglomerate, and related Kirkwood Formation, to build them. These grand red palaces and other buildings in Oudtshoorn can still be admired today. A railway line was built to connect Calitzdorp and Oudtshoorn, to Willowmore and from there, via Klipplaat, to Port Elizabeth , from where
11616-534: The plains. The mountain zebra occurred in the mountain regions of the Cape Fold Belt and along the southern portion of the Great Escarpment. Thus, they were endemic to, amongst others, the western Lower Karoo and the Klein Karoo. However, they were hunted to near extinction, leaving fewer than 100 individuals by the 1930s. Conservation efforts since then brought their numbers up to 1200 by 1998, mainly by concentrating these zebra in nature reserves and protected areas,
11737-406: The population of the Western Cape as 7,433,020 people living in 2,264,032 households. As the province covers an area of 129,462 square kilometres (49,986 sq mi), the population density was 45.0 inhabitants per square kilometre (117/sq mi) and the household density 12.6 per square kilometre (33/sq mi). Karoo The Karoo ( / k ə ˈ r u ə / kə- ROO -ə ; from
11858-402: The provincial legislature to serve as a cabinet of ministers, overseeing the departments of the provincial government . These departments are Agriculture, Community Safety , Cultural Affairs and Sport, Economic Development and Tourism, Education , Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Health , Human Settlements, Local Government, Social Development, Transport and Public Works , and
11979-523: The provincial parliament as the sole representative of the Freedom Front Plus . Patricia de Lille formed another party, Good , and it achieved a seat. The DA continued to win a majority of the votes in the 2021 municipal elections , receiving 54% of the vote province-wide, with support in Cape Town at 58%. Since the late 2000s there has been growing support for Western Cape, or Greater Cape, independence from South Africa. Political parties such as
12100-499: The provincial parliament, while the ANC won 14 seats with 31% of the vote. The DA leader Helen Zille was elected Premier. In 2010 the Independent Democrats , which had won 3 seats with 5% of the vote, merged with the DA. In the 2014 election the DA won 59% of the votes and an absolute majority of 26 seats in the provincial parliament, while the ANC won 14 seats with 32% of the vote. In 2018 King Khoebaha Cornelius III Declared
12221-496: The railway line, throughout the Great Karoo. A prime example still "guards" a bridge over the Buffels River , 12 km (7.5 mi) to the east of the town of Laingsburg , in the Lower Karoo, between Matjiesfontein and Beaufort West. Recently, nature reserves and game farms have been established in many parts of the Great Karoo, turning what was once regarded as a forbiddingly desolate and unattractive geographical barrier into
12342-535: The region is also extremely diverse, with one of the world's seven floral kingdoms almost exclusively endemic to the province, namely the Cape Floral Kingdom , most of which is covered by Fynbos (from the Afrikaans meaning "Fine Bush" (Dutch: Fijnbos), though precisely how it came to be referred to as such, is uncertain.). These evergreen heathlands are extremely rich in species diversity, with at least as many plant species occurring on Table Mountain as in
12463-553: The relentless aridity, the intense heat (such that even their dogs could not walk on the scorching ground and had to be lifted into the overcrowded wagons), and the bitter cold in winter, especially at night. Before that time, the only inhabitants were the Khoe -speaking clans migrating through the area, and !Ui -speaking peoples, who lived in small family groups and, it is believed, remained largely in their own "territories", killing their own game, and gathering bulbs and roots and drinking from
12584-563: The south just north of the sandveld geographical region, about 250 km north of Cape Town, and continues through Namaqualand , the Richtersveld , immediately south of the Orange River , and on into the Namaqualand or Namaland region of southern Namibia . None of these regions is ever referred to, either geographically or locally, as "Karoo". However, it has a major extension inland into
12705-556: The south-easterly winds driving upwelling are weaker which results in warmer coastal waters than normal, while during La Niña the same winds are stronger and cause colder coastal waters. These effects on the winds are part of large scale influences on the tropical Atlantic and the South Atlantic High -pressure system, and changes to the pattern of westerly winds further south. There are other influences not known to be related to ENSO of similar importance. Some ENSO events do not lead to
12826-495: The south. Ancient reptiles and amphibians prospered in the wet forests, and their remains have made the Karoo famous amongst palaeontologists . The first of these Karoo fossils was discovered in 1838 by Scots-born Andrew Geddes Bain at a road cutting near Fort Beaufort. He sent his specimens to the British Museum , where fellow Scotsman Robert Broom recognised the Karoo fossils' mammal-like characteristics in 1897. After
12947-609: The strikingly red "Redstone Hills". The second special geological feature that marks the Kelin Karoo is the 300 km-long fault line along the southern edge of the Swartberg Mountains. The Swartberg Mountains were lifted up along this fault, to such an extent that in the Oudtshoorn region, the rocks that form the base of the Cape Supergroup are exposed. These are locally known as the Cango Group, but are probably continuous with
13068-406: The summer and winter rainfall areas. Winter rainfall areas tend to get higher rainfall than normal and summer rainfall areas tend to get less rain. The effect on the summer rainfall areas is stronger and has led to severe drought in strong El Niño events. Sea surface temperatures off the west and south coasts of South Africa are affected by ENSO via changes in surface wind strength. During El Niño
13189-423: The surface and deep below the surface between the sedimentary strata. Since this massive extrusion of lava, Southern Africa has undergone a prolonged period of erosion, exposing the older, softer rocks, except where they were protected by a cap of dolerite. The genera present include: The lava outpourings that ended the Karoo deposition of rocks, not only covered the African surface, and other parts of Gondwana with
13310-461: The third largest economy of South Africa's nine provinces, behind Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal . The province's unemployment rate was 20.2%, which is the lowest in South Africa and considerably below the national unemployment rate of 31.9%. As of 2018, the Western Cape's Human Development Index is the highest in South Africa at 0.741 compared to the South African average of 0.705. As of 2023,
13431-697: The whole, they were silent, except for the shudder of their stamping hoofs. Nothing could divert them, and hunters could ride amongst them, shooting them at random, without apparently causing alarm. People could move amongst them and kill them with sticks, or cripple them by seizing a leg and breaking it. Not only people followed these herds for the easy meat they provided, but also lions , leopards , cheetahs , African wild dogs , hyenas , and jackals preyed on them. No one knew how, why, or where these migrations started, nor where they ended, nor did anyone know if these animals ever returned to where they had started. The migrations were always unidirectional, from north of
13552-477: The windpump to tap the Great Karoo's underground water resources in the late 1800s made permanent human habitation and sheep farming possible over large parts of the Great Karoo for the first time. As a result, the teeming number of large antelope in the Karoo has dwindled into insignificance, and with them, the large carnivores have all but disappeared. Today, the caracal (7–19 kg), black-backed jackal (6–10 kg), Verreaux's eagle (3.0–5.8 kg) and
13673-538: The xerophytes, though each sheep requires about 4 hectares (9.9 acres) of grazing to sustain itself. The Karoo is divided into the Great Karoo and the Klein Karoo. The Klein Karoo is delimited in the south by the Outeniqua–Langeberg Mountains that run east–west parallel to the coast, and in the north by the Swartberg Mountain Range that also runs east–west. The Great Karoo lies to the north
13794-548: Was created in 1994 from part of the former Cape Province . The two largest cities are Cape Town and George . The Western Cape is roughly L-shaped, extending north and east from the Cape of Good Hope , in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It stretches about 400 kilometres (250 mi) northwards along the Atlantic coast and about 500 kilometres (300 mi) eastwards along the South African south coast ( Southern Indian Ocean ). It
13915-424: Was divided into the Western Cape, Northern Cape , Eastern Cape and part of North West . In the 1994 election, the Western Cape was one of two provinces that did not elect an African National Congress (ANC) provincial government (the other being KwaZulu-Natal ). The National Party (NP) won 53% of the votes and 23 seats in the 42-seat provincial legislature, and Hernus Kriel , a former Minister of Law and Order,
14036-592: Was elected Premier . He resigned in 1998 and was replaced by Gerald Morkel . The 1999 election marked the beginning of a period of great turbulence in Western Cape politics. No party achieved an absolute majority in the provincial parliament, as the ANC won 18 seats while the New National Party (NNP), successor to the NP, won 17. The NNP went into coalition with the Democratic Party (DP), which won 5 seats, to form
14157-680: Was elected in 2024 ; 24 seats are held by the Democratic Alliance , 8 by the African National Congress , 3 by the Patriotic Alliance , 2 by the Economic Freedom Fighters , and 1 each by the African Christian Democratic Party , Al Jama-ah , Good , Freedom Front Plus , and National Coloured Congress . The provincial parliament is responsible for legislating within its responsibilities as set out by
14278-435: Was formed, geologically speaking, in a short period of time. Although almost the whole of the Great Karoo is situated on Karoo Supergroup rocks, the geological Karoo rocks extend over a very much larger area, both within South Africa and Lesotho, but also beyond its borders and onto other continents that formed part of Gondwana . The Karoo Supergroup was formed in a vast inland basin starting 320 million years ago, at
14399-466: Was found. The Orange River, at this point, forms the local unofficial boundary between the Great Karoo and the Highveld. The line reached Kimberley in 1885, and has since been extended via Botswana (then Bechuanaland) to reach Zimbabwe and Zambia (when they were still known as South and North Rhodesia), and branch lines have been constructed to Namibia and Port Elizabeth through a hub at De Aar, in
14520-405: Was later gradually restricted, and eventually abolished, under various National Party and United Party governments. In 1930 white women were enfranchised , and in 1931 property qualifications for white voters were removed . In 1936 black voters were then removed from the common voters' rolls and allowed only to elect separate members in 1936, and subsequently denied all representation in
14641-421: Was replaced by Peter Marais. In 2002 Marais resigned as Premier due to a sexual harassment scandal, and was replaced by NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk . During the 2003 floor-crossing period four members of the provincial parliament crossed to the ANC, giving it an absolute majority of 22 seats in the 42-seat house. However, the ANC remained in coalition with the NNP and van Schalkwyk remained as Premier. In
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