Graskop is a small town in
Mpumalanga
Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...
province,
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 ...
. It was set up in the 1880s as a
gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
mining camp but it now serves as a
tourist
Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity on ...
destination and the
timber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
industry. “
God’s Window”, a scenic view from the
escarpment
An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.
Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...
of the
Lowveld
Veld ( or , Afrikaans and Dutch: ''veld'', field), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide-open, rural landscape in Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, ...
below, is located outside the town.
Graskop is 14 km south-east of
Pilgrim's Rest and 28 km north of
Sabie. It was laid out between 1880 and 1890 on a farm belonging to Abel Erasmus, Native Commissioner of the
Transvaal Republic
The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result of the Second ...
. The name is
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
for ''grassy hillock''. Originally it was a mining camp. It is the best place to view the "Edge of the Lowveld", with a sudden drop of 700 metres.
References
External links
*
Populated places in the Thaba Chweu Local Municipality
Mining communities in South Africa
{{Mpumalanga-geo-stub