Nqanqarhu (formerly Maclear) is a small town situated in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, near the Mooi River (a tributary of the

Tsitsa River The Tsitsa River ( af, Tsitsarivier; xh, iTsitsa) is a river in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It is a tributary of the Mzimvubu River and belongs to the Mzimvubu to Keiskamma Water Management Area. Course The Tsitsa rises in the Drak ...

), north of

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

and northeast of

Elliot Elliot (also spelled Eliot, Elliotte, Elliott, Eliott and Elyot) is a personal name which can serve as either a surname or a given name. Although the given name has historically been given to males, females have increasingly been given the nam ...

. It was founded in 1876 as a military camp, called ''Nqanqaru Drift'' and developed rapidly, reaching municipal status in 1916. It is named after Sir

Thomas Maclear Sir Thomas Maclear (17 March 1794 – 14 July 1879) was an Irish-born South African astronomer who became Her Majesty's astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope. Life He was born in Newtownstewart, County Tyrone, Ireland, the eldest son of Rev J ...

(1794-1879), a famous astronomer who laid the foundation for a trigonometrical survey of the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...

. It lies just north-east of Ugie. The land to the east and south was part of the former homeland of

Transkei Transkei (, meaning ''the area beyond he riverKei''), officially the Republic of Transkei ( xh, iRiphabliki yeTranskei), was an unrecognised state in the southeastern region of South Africa from 1976 to 1994. It was, along with Ciskei, a Ba ...

Tourism

Maclear is a

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-sa ...

-fishing resort.

Geographic location

Maclear lies between

Mount Fletcher Mount Fletcher (officially Tlokoeng) is a town in Joe Gqabi District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bou ...

and Ugie, in the foothills of the

Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Afrikaans: Drakensberge, Zulu: uKhahlambha, Sotho: Maluti) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau. The Great Escarpment reaches its greatest elevation – within t ...

mountains, and at the intersection between the R56 and R396 roads.

References

{{Joe Gqabi District Municipality Populated places in the Elundini Local Municipality