Villiersdorp is a town of approximately 10,000 people located in 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 of

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 ...

in the

Overberg __NOTOC__ Overberg is a region in South Africa to the east of Cape Town beyond the Hottentots-Holland mountains. It lies along the Western Cape Province's south coast between the Cape Peninsula and the region known as the Garden Route in the e ...

region. Unlike most of the geographical region which specialises in

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

and

canola file:CanolaBlooms.JPG, Close-up of canola blooms file:Canola Flower.jpg, Canola flower Rapeseed oil is one of the oldest known vegetable oils. There are both Edible oil, edible and industrial forms produced from rapeseed, the seed of several ...

farming, the Villiersdorp Valley is now agriculturally and in micro-climate more similar to the Elgin Valley and

Grabouw Grabouw ( , ) is a town located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Grabouw is located some 65 km south-east of Cape Town, over Sir Lowry's Pass from Somerset West, along the N2 (South Africa), N2 highway. The town is the commercia ...

since the building of the Theewaterskloof Dam, and thus also specialises in

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

fruit farming and

viticulture Viticulture (, "vine-growing"), viniculture (, "wine-growing"), or winegrowing is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine ...

. The Theewaterskloof Dam, the largest dam in the

and seventh largest in South Africa and important water supply to

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 ...

fills the majority of the valley floor. The Villiersdorp Co-Op is also the only place in South Africa that processes and dries persimmons. The three big packsheds in Villiersdorp, Betko, Arbeidsvreugd and Ideafruit, as well as the Villiersdorp Co-Op process the fruit grown in the area for export and transport to other parts of South Africa. The town is named after Field Cornet Pieter de Villiers, a local farmer who founded the settlement in 1843. There is a lot more packsheds that developed over the years like Fruitways , Provider farming, Vilbo Fruit, Fruit Affair, Kaaimansgat boerdery, Bo Radyn Boerdery, that are not mentioned.

Notable people

* Sir David Graaff, 1st Baronet and his younger brother Jacobus Arnoldus Graaff were born in Villiersdorp. After making their fortune in

they went on to found the De Villiers Graaff High School in Villiersdorp in 1907 with an endowment of £100 000 (equivalent to £41,100,000 or R471,195,167 in 2010EX
Universal Currency Converter, retrieved on the 26 June 2010)

References

External links

History of Villiersdorp
{{Authority control Populated places in the Theewaterskloof Local Municipality