Ladismith is a town and agricultural centre in the western

Little Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe Khoemana (also known as !Orakobab or Korana) word is a semidesert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent i ...

region of South Africa's

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.

Geography

It is situated adjacent to a series of fertile, irrigated valleys, at an elevation of 550 m above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

, at the southern base of the

Swartberg The Swartberg mountains (''black mountain'' in English language, English) 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 sem ...

. It is currently included in the southern

Kannaland Local Municipality Kannaland Municipality () is a local municipality located within the Garden Route District Municipality, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The municipal area is situated in the western part of the Little Karoo and includes the towns of ...

. The nearest towns are

Calitzdorp 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. History The farm Buffelsvallei, on which Calitzdorp stands, was granted to Jacobus Johannes ...

to the east, Vanwyksdorp and Riversdale to the south and Laingsburg to the north.

History

In 1852 the farm Elandsvlei was set aside for the town, and it became a municipality in 1862. It was named after Lady Juana María de los Dolores de León Smith, the wife of

Sir Harry Smith Lieutenant-General Sir Henry George Wakelyn Smith, 1st Baronet, GCB (28 June 1787 – 12 October 1860) was a notable English soldier and military commander in the British Army of the early 19th century. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, he is a ...

, one of two towns 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 ...

named after her, the other being Ladysmith in

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...

Notes

External links

Ladismith, official page
* {{Garden Route District Municipality Populated places in the Kannaland Local Municipality 1862 establishments in the British Empire