Uitenhage, officially renamed Kariega, is a South African town in the Eastern Cape Province. It is well known for the Volkswagen factory located there, which is the biggest car factory on the African continent. Along with the city of Port Elizabeth and the small town of Despatch, it forms the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality.
The Karoo 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 a well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils.
The Garden Route is a 300-kilometre (190 mi) stretch of the south-eastern coast of South Africa which extends from Witsand in the Western Cape to the border of Tsitsikamma Storms River in the Eastern Cape. The name comes from the verdant and ecologically diverse vegetation encountered here and the numerous estuaries and lakes dotted along the coast. It includes towns such as Witsand, Heidelberg, Riversdale, Stilbaai, Albertinia, Gouritsmond, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Mossel Bay, Oudtshoorn, Great Brak River, Little Brak River, Wilderness, Sedgefield and Nature's Valley; with George, the Garden Route's largest city and main administrative centre.
Harrismith is a large town in the Free State province of South Africa. It was named for Sir Harry Smith, a 19th-century British governor and high commissioner of the Cape Colony. It is situated by the Wilge River, alongside the N3 highway, about midway between Johannesburg, about 275 km to the north-west, and Durban to the southeast. The town is located at the junction of the N5 highway, which continues westward towards the provincial capital Bloemfontein, some 340 km to the south-west. This important crossroads in South Africa's land trade routes is surrounded by mesas and buttes. It is located at the base of one of these called Platberg.
Oudtshoorn is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, located between the Swartberg mountains to the north and the Outeniqua Mountains to the south. Dubbed the "ostrich capital of the world", Oudtshoorn is known for its ostrich-feather booms, during 1865–1870 and 1900–1914. With approximately 60,000 inhabitants, it is the largest town in the Klein Karoo region. The town's economy is primarily reliant on the ostrich farming and tourism industries. Oudtshoorn is home to the world's largest ostrich population, with a number of specialised ostrich breeding farms, such as the Safari Show Farm and the Highgate Ostrich Show Farm, as stated by Pierre D. Toit.
The Swartberg mountains are a mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is composed of two main mountain chains running roughly east–west along the northern edge of the semi-arid Little Karoo. To the north of the range lies the other large semi-arid area in South Africa, the Great Karoo. Most of the Swartberg Mountains are above 2000 m high, making them the tallest mountains in the Western Cape. It is also one of the longest, spanning some 230 km from south of Laingsburg in the west to between Willowmore and Uniondale in the east. Geologically, these mountains are part of the Cape Fold Belt.
The R72 is a provincial route in Eastern Cape, South Africa that connects the N2 north-east of Gqeberha with East London via Port Alfred. It provides an alternative to the N2 for travel between Gqeberha and East London.
Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa's second-smallest metropolitan municipality by area. It is the sixth-most populous city in South Africa and is the cultural, economic and financial hub of the Eastern Cape.
The N2 is a national route in South Africa that runs from Cape Town through George, Gqeberha, East London, Mthatha, Port Shepstone and Durban to Ermelo. It is the main highway along the Indian Ocean coast of the country. Its current length of 2,255 kilometres (1,401 mi) makes it the longest numbered route in South Africa.
George is the second largest city in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The city is a popular holiday and conference centre, as well as the administrative and commercial hub and the seat of the Garden Route District Municipality. It is named after the British Monarch George III.
Montagu is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, about 180 kilometres (110 mi) from Cape Town in the Western Little Karoo.
Robertson is a town in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, known as the valley of wine and roses, at the heart of the wine route - Route 62.
The Cango Caves are located in Precambrian limestones at the foothills of the Swartberg range near the town of Oudtshoorn, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The principal cave is one of the country's finest, best known, and most popular tourist caves and attracts many visitors from overseas. Although the extensive system of tunnels and chambers go on for over 4 km, only about a quarter of this is open to visitors, who may proceed into the cave only in groups supervised by a guide.
Durbanville, previously called Pampoenkraal, is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, part of the greater Cape Town metropolitan area. It is a semi-rural residential suburb on the north-eastern outskirts of the metropolis surrounded by farms producing wine and wheat.
The Parachute Association of South Africa (PASA) manages the sports of parachuting and skydiving in South Africa on behalf of the South African Civil Aviation Authority.
Calitzdorp is a town on the Western side of the Little or Klein Karoo in the Western Cape Province of South Africa and lies on South Africa's Route 62.
The R62 is a provincial route in South Africa that connects Ashton with Humansdorp. The R62 runs through the Little Karoo and the Langkloof, passing through Montagu, Ladismith, Calitzdorp, Oudtshoorn, and Joubertina.
Thomas Charles John Bain was a South African road engineer. As a prolific road building pioneer, Bain was responsible for the planning and construction of more than 900 km of roads and mountain passes, many of them still in use today, over a career spanning from 1848 until 1888. These passes through the mountain ranges between the thin coastal plain and the interior of the former Cape Colony in South Africa, played a major role in opening up the vast hinterland of South Africa.
The economy of the Western Cape in South Africa is dominated by the city of Cape Town, which accounted for 72% of the Western Cape's economic activity in 2016. The single largest contributor to the region's economy is the financial and business services sector, followed by manufacturing. Close to 30% of the gross regional product comes from foreign trade with agricultural products and wine dominating exports. High-tech industries, international call centres, fashion design, advertising and TV production are niche industries rapidly gaining in importance.
