Graaff-Reinet

The Cape's Dutch administration founded Graaff-Reinet in 1786 as the seat of a new frontier district, naming it for the governor Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff and his wife. It is the oldest town in the Eastern Cape and the sixth-oldest in South Africa. The site, in a loop of the Sundays River below the Sneeuberge, already lay in country used by Khoekhoe herders and San hunters and was being taken up by trekboer stock farmers moving out from the Cape.

The frontier was unruly from the start. In 1795 local burghers drove out the Company's landdrost and declared a short-lived republic, which lasted until British and then Batavian authority was restored. Through the nineteenth century the town settled into its role as the market and church centre of the Camdeboo: the Drostdy went up in the first years of the nineteenth century, Reinet House was completed in 1812, and a succession of larger churches ended with the Groote Kerk that still closes the top of Church Street. Wool from Karoo merino flocks paid for the gabled houses that give the streets their character.

The South African War of 1899–1902 divided the district, with local men on both sides. In the twentieth century apartheid planning moved Black and coloured residents to Umasizakhe and Kroonvale on the edges of town. Robert Sobukwe, founder of the Pan Africanist Congress, was born here in 1924. From the 1950s a conservation movement grew around the town, ending in the proclamation of Camdeboo National Park in 2005; protection of the old centre has left the town with more declared national monuments than any other in South Africa. In January 2026 the national government approved renaming the town Robert Sobukwe Town, a change made official the following month and opposed by many residents.

The town's public face is architectural. It has more declared national monuments than any other town or city in South Africa, and the mixture of Cape Dutch gables, flat-roofed Karoo cottages and Victorian ironwork is the reason most visitors come. The spire above Church Street sets the pace of the week for a largely churchgoing population, and the Dutch Reformed and Anglican congregations, along with independent churches in Umasizakhe, are the main social institutions alongside the schools and the sports clubs.

Two languages shape daily manners. Afrikaans is spoken by most people in the town, including the coloured community of Kroonvale, whose ancestors were among the labourers, freed slaves and Khoekhoe workers of the early district; isiXhosa is the language of Umasizakhe and of much of the surrounding farm labour force. Introductions are unhurried, and strangers are greeted in the street.

The wider Karoo has developed a strong literary and artistic identity, and Graaff-Reinet sits at its centre: the Owl House at nearby Nieu-Bethesda drew a generation of artists and writers to the district, and small galleries, craft workshops and second-hand bookshops occupy several of the old houses. Farming culture underlies everything else — sheep auctions, agricultural shows, hunting season and the endless talk of rain. Sunday lunch and the braai are the social fixtures of the weekend, and the town empties in the afternoon heat of midsummer.

About 35,000 people live in Graaff-Reinet and its surrounding areas, a figure that has grown as farm workers have moved into town. The centre is small and comfortable; the great majority of residents live in Umasizakhe and Kroonvale, where unemployment is high and many households depend on social grants and seasonal farm work. The gap between the guesthouse streets and the townships is as visible here as anywhere in the country.

Sheep and goat farming for wool, mohair and meat is the foundation of the district economy, with game farming and hunting alongside it. Tourism is the other pillar — guesthouses, restaurants, the museums and the national park — and it supports a good share of local jobs. Government offices, schools and the hospital make up much of the rest of formal employment.

Drought is the defining local issue. The Karoo's rainfall is unreliable, and dry years empty the Nqweba Dam and force farmers to sell stock and the municipality to restrict water; the debate over water supply, borehole use and the state of municipal infrastructure runs through local politics. Electricity interruptions have shaped business hours in recent years as they have across South Africa. The rhythm of the day is early: shops open soon after seven, the streets are quiet in the afternoon, and by nightfall the town is still.

Karoo lamb is the local speciality and the reason the town appears on food itineraries. Sheep grazing on the dry, aromatic shrubs of the plains produce meat with a distinct flavour, eaten as chops off the braai, as a slow-roasted leg, or in a potjie — the three-legged cast-iron pot in which stew is cooked over coals for hours. Mutton and venison from the district's game farms appear on the same menus, along with springbok and kudu.

Everyday cooking is Afrikaans country food: pap or samp with tomato-and-onion sauce, boerewors, bobotie, pumpkin fritters, and milk tart or malva pudding afterwards. In Umasizakhe the Xhosa staples of the Eastern Cape are eaten as they are across the province — umngqusho, samp cooked with beans, umphokoqo crumbly porridge with sour milk, and meat at ceremonies. Biltong and droëwors, air-dried and spiced, are made locally and sold in butcheries and farm stalls.

Rusks — hard twice-baked biscuits dunked in coffee — are the standard breakfast of the region, and preserves, honey and dried fruit fill the farm stalls on the main roads. A few vineyards and olive groves have been planted along the Sundays River, and the restaurants of the old centre serve Cape wines by the glass. Coffee places in Church Street fill mid-morning, the town's busiest social hour.