Coastal and Inland Towns
The municipality's geographical area of 14 000 km2 encompasses 18 towns and villages. These include the coastal towns of Doring Bay, Strandfontein and Papendorp. Larger inland towns include Ebenaeser, Lutzville, Koekenaap, Vredendal, Klawer, Trawal, Vanrhynsdorp, Nuwerus and Bitterfontein.
Small rural settlements Kliprand, Put-se-Kloof, Rietpoort, Molsvlei and Stofkraal also fall within the Matzikama municipal area. The largest town and also commercial and administrative headquarters of Matzikama is Vredendal, which lies about 300 km north of Cape Town. The town serves the agricultural community and is situated on the banks of the Olifants River.
The wine cellar in town is, in a year of good harvests, the largest in South Africa. Vanrhynsdorp is the most eastern town in Matzikama, an important commercial centre for the area’s sheep farmers and popular with visitors during the spring flower season starting in August. On the Atlantic coast, the most well-known town is Strandfontein, a small holiday village, popular with fisherman and seafood enthusiasts and host to the Madeliefie Makietie, a music festival held in October.
A tiny fishing settlement in the southern part of Namaqualand, Doringbaai, or ‘Thornbay’ as it was called long ago, lies on the west coa...
Klawer developed around a railway station, which opened in 1914, servicing the Olifants River Valley and was named after a type of wild clov...
Lutzville is an agricultural town in the Matzikama Region some 320 km north of Cape Town and about 26 km from Vredendal. The town was named ...
Trawal is 15 km south of Klawer and 267 km north of Cape Town, located on the N7 between Cape Town and Namibia. This grape-growing settlemen...
Vanrhynsdorp is a small farming town in the Matzikama region of the Western Cape, situated on the Troe-Troe River near the Maskam mountain, ...
Vredendal is situated on the banks of the Olifants River in the Western Cape Province. The town's location on the banks of the Olifants Rive...