Mac-Mac is a historical area in the

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It ...

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 ...

, and the site of the country's earliest

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...

. It is located near the town of

Sabie Sabie is a forestry town situated on the banks of the Sabie River in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The name Sabie is derived from the siSwati word "Ulusaba" which means "fearful river" because the river was once teeming with dangerous Nile crocodile. ...

, 5 km from Pilgrim's Rest. While a number of small gold deposits had been discovered in the northern parts of South Africa between 1840 and 1870, Mac-Mac was the first place where payable quantities of gold were found. In 1873 gold was discovered on the farm Geelhoutboom. President Burgers officially named the area the ''New Caledonian Gold Fields'', but it became known as ''Mac-Mac'' because of the amount of Scottish diggers at the camp. Within one year, 1,500 diggers made 4,000 claims. The nearby Mac Mac twin falls, originally a single stream, acquired their current appearance when gold miners blasted the stream to reach the gold-bearing reef over which it drops. In the late 1990s the old forestry station and forester houses were used to start the Mac Mac Forest Retreat.

References

{{coord, -24.991, 30.813, display=title History of South Africa Tourist attractions in Mpumalanga