Klapmuts is the name of both a hill, and a town which formed at its foot. They are located in

Cape Winelands District Municipality The Cape Winelands District Municipality, formerly the Boland District Municipality, is a district municipality located in the Boland region of the Western Cape province of South Africa. As of 2011, it had a population of 787,490. The largest tow ...

in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Klapmuts town

Klapmuts is a little town just off the

R45 R45 may refer to: * ''R45'' (EP), by Death Piggy * R45 (South Africa), a road * BMW R45 BMW extended its range of horizontally opposed twins in the late 1970s with the introduction of the R45. Looking very much like scaled down versions of B ...

road between

Kraaifontein Kraaifontein is a town in the Western Cape, Western Cape province of South Africa. Organisationally and administratively it is included in the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality as a Northern Suburbs, Cape Town, Northern Suburb. The name o ...

and Paarl, It is well known for its surrounding wine farms. In 1683 the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

and established a cattle stock-farm at Klapmuts. Finding

Khoisan Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in t ...

to trade with proved a difficult task so the VOC employed a chieftain named Klaas (Rank Capt) to find Khoisan and negotiate trade deals on behalf of the Company. In 1684 trading posts were established at Kuilen, Diep River, Vissers Hok, Riet Vlei, Hottentots Holland, Tygerberg and Klapmuts.

Klapmutskop hill and conservancy

Conebush on Klapmutskop hill fynbos - Klapmuts

Klapmutskop, the isolated hill which stands over the town, is a unique combination of Shale, Sandstone, Granite and Conglomerate. Its natural vegetation is a complex mixture, due to the underlying soils. It is predominantly the threatened Swartland Shale Renosterveld as well as several other vegetation types on the other soil types. The crown of the hill has an ancient relict remnant of Afrotemperate forest with a population of rare

Breede River Yellowwood ''Podocarpus elongatus'', the Breede River yellowwood, is a species of conifer in the family Podocarpaceae. In contrast to other yellowwood species of southern Africa, ''Podocarpus elongatus'' often resembles an enormous, round, multi-stemmed bu ...

trees - stunted by the unique environment. In 2004, a conservancy was set up over the hill by the surrounding farms, which serve as curators of the area and its wildlife.http://www.elsenburg.com/srm/landcare.html Downloadable documents on Klapmutskop conservancy

References

{{Cape Winelands District Municipality Populated places in the Stellenbosch Local Municipality 1683 establishments in the Dutch Empire