Vanrhynsdorp (also written Van Rhynsdorp; ) is a town located in the

West Coast District Municipality The West Coast District Municipality (; ) is a district municipality located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its municipality code is DC1. Moorreesburg is the seat of the district. As of 2011, it had a total population of 391,766. G ...

of the

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

province in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. Considered the oldest and most southern European-settled town in

Namaqualand Namaqualand ( Khoikhoi: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoi people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over and covering a total area of . It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River int ...

, Vanrhynsdorp serves as a gateway to the

Succulent Karoo The Succulent Karoo is an terrestrial ecoregion, ecoregion defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature to include regions of deserts and xeric shrublands, desert in South Africa and Namibia, and a biodiversity hotspot. The geographic area chosen ...

and

Nama Karoo Nama Karoo is a xeric shrubland ecoregion located on the central plateau of South Africa and Namibia. It occupies most of the interior of the western half of South Africa and extends into the southern interior of Namibia. Climate The climate o ...

regions to the north and east.

History

Vanrhynsdorp was founded as Trutro ("TroeTroe") after the area was first explored by Europeans in 1661 by Pieter van Meerhoff.Vanrhynsdorp
SA Places. Retrieved 2012-05-06. The Troe-Troe Zending ("Mission") dates to the 1751 completion of the Trutro Homestead, which still stands in Vanrhynsdorp today. The name of the town was changed to Vanrhynsdorp (sometimes spelled ''Van Rhynsdorp'' in English) in 1881.

Geography

Vanrhynsdorp is located north of

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

, east of Vredendal, and north of Clanwilliam. The town sits at the edge of the

, an area of semi-desert

succulent In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word ''succulent'' comes from the Latin word ''sucus'', meani ...

vegetation.Vanrhynsdorp, Cape West Coast
SA venues. Retrieved 2012-05-06. The mountains around the town were populated by the

San people The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. They are thought to have diverged from other humans 100,000 to 200 ...

, a group of late stone age hunter-gatherers. Examples of rock art exist dating from this period exist in the area.

Economy

The Steenkampskraal mine and

rare-earth mineral A rare-earth mineral contains one or more rare-earth elements as major metal constituents. Rare-earth minerals are usually found in association with alkaline to peralkaline igneous magmas in pegmatites or with carbonatite Intrusive rock, intrusiv ...

deposit is located in

, approximately to the northeast of the town center.

Society

A significant proportion of Vanrhynsdorp's indigenous Khoe population are victims of alcoholism as a result of the European colonists “dop system” where historically the European colonists created apartheid to evict the indigenous Khoe from their own lands; European colonist farmers later paid their indigenous Khoe farm workers with alcohol and subsequent generations continued this cycle. The Khoe people are recognised, along with the San, as being the earliest residents of South Africa and are in fact the oldest people on Earth.

Transport

The town sits on the N7 highway that connects

to the

Namibian This is a demography of the population of Namibia including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. Population Census results As r ...

border.

References

Populated places in the Matzikama Local Municipality Populated places established in 1751 1751 establishments in the Dutch Empire {{WesternCape-geo-stub