The Overberg District Municipality is a

district municipality A district municipality is a designation for a class of municipalities found in several locations, including Canada, Lithuania, and South Africa. Canada British Columbia Under provincial law, municipalities in British Columbia are to be desig ...

that governs 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 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 ...

. It is divided into four local municipalities and includes the major towns of

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 highway.The town is the commercial centre for the vast Elgin ...

, Caledon,

Hermanus Hermanus (originally called ''Hermanuspietersfontein'', but shortened in 1902 as the name was too long for the postal service

Bredasdorp Bredasdorp is a town in the Southern Overberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa, and the main economic and service hub of that region. It lies on the northern edge of the Agulhas Plain, about south-east of Cape Town and north of Cape Agul ...

and

Swellendam Swellendam is the fifth oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, and Paarl), a town with 17,537 inhabitants situated in the Western Cape province. The town has over 50 provincial heritage sites, most of them b ...

. The municipal area covers and had in 2007 an estimated population of 212,787 people in 60,056 households.

Geography

The Overberg municipal area covers lying to the south-east of

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

. It stretches from the

Hottentots-Holland The Hottentots Holland Mountains are part of the Cape Fold Belt in the Western Cape, South Africa. The mountain range forms a barrier between the Cape Town metropolitan area and the southern Overberg coast. The range is primarily composed of Ta ...

mountains in the west to the

Breede River The Breede River ( af, Breederivier), also known as Breë River, is a river in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Travelling inland north from the city of Cape Town, the river runs in a west to east direction. The surrounding western mou ...

mouth in the east, and as far as the

Riviersonderend Mountains The Riviersonderend Mountains are a mountain range in the Cape Fold Belt of the Western Cape province of South Africa. They run east to west from Riviersonderend to Villiersdorp, separating the Breede River Valley from the Overberg region. They ...

in the north. It includes

Cape Agulhas Cape Agulhas (; pt, Cabo das Agulhas , "Cape of the Needles") is a rocky headland in Western Cape, South Africa. It is the geographic southern tip of the African continent and the beginning of the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian ...

, the southernmost point in Africa, and has coastline on both the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

. The largest town is

(pop. 44,593) in the

Elgin Valley Elgin may refer to: Places Canada * Elgin County, Ontario * Elgin Settlement, a 19th-century community for freed slaves located in present-day North Buxton and South Buxton, Chatham-Kent, Ontario * Elgin, a village in Rideau Lakes, Ontari ...

adjacent to the Hottentots-Holland on the north-western edge of the district. The municipal headquarters are located at

(pop. 12,749) in the southern part of the district. Other major towns are

(pop. 13,557) on the Breede River in the north-east, Caledon (pop. 10,650) in the western interior, and

Hermanus Hermanus (originally called ''Hermanuspietersfontein'', but shortened in 1902 as the name was too long for the postal service

(pop. 10,500) on the Atlantic coast. The Overberg district is divided into four local municipalities, which are described in the following table. It borders on the

City of Cape Town The City of Cape Town ( af, Stad Kaapstad; xh, IsiXeko saseKapa) is the metropolitan municipality which governs the city of Cape Town, South Africa and its suburbs and exurbs. As of the 2011 census, it had a population of 3,740,026. The remo ...

to the west, the

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 ...

to the north, and the

Garden Route District Municipality The Garden Route District Municipality ( af, Tuinroete-distriksmunisipaliteit or ''Garden Route Distriksmunisipaliteit''; xh, uMasipala weSithili sase Garden Route; formerly known as the Eden District Municipality) is a district municipality loca ...

to the east.

Demographics

The following statistics are from the 2011 Census. Note that due to fuzzing applied to statistics, columns may not sum to exactly the indicated total.

Politics

The council of the Overberg District Municipality consists of twenty-one councillors. Nine councillors are directly elected by

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be us ...

, and twelve are appointed by the councils of the local municipalities in the district: five by Theewaterskloof, four by

Overstrand Overstrand is a village (population 1,030) on the north coast of Norfolk in England, two miles east of Cromer. It was once a modest fishing station, with all or part of the fishing station being known as Beck Hythe. In the latter part of the 19t ...

, two by

and one by

. After the elections of 3 August 2016, fourteen of the councillors are Democratic Alliance (DA) representatives and seven are

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...

(ANC) representatives. The mayor is Andries Franken and the deputy mayor is Archibald Klaas; both are members of the DA. The following table shows the composition of the council after the 2016 election. The following table shows the results of the election of the nine directly-elected members on 3 August 2016.

References

External links

Official website

Overberg District Municipality on the Western Cape Government website

Electronic Gateway to the Cape Overberg

Overberg Website
{{Municipalities of the Western Cape District municipalities of the Western Cape Overberg District Municipality