Reivilo is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

situated 100 km southwest of

Vryburg Vryburg () is a large agricultural town with a population of 48,400 situated in the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipality of the North West Province of South Africa. It is the seat and the industrial and agricultural heartland of the di ...

on the Ghaap Plateau in

North West Province North West is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Mahikeng. The province is located to the west of the major population centre of Gauteng and south of Botswana. History North West was incorporated after the end of Apartheid in 1994, an ...

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

. Large scale

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

mining took place in the district.

History

The town was established in 1883 and at first named ''Cathcart West'' (to distinguish it from

Cathcart, Eastern Cape Cathcart is a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, named after Sir George Cathcart, governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope 1852–1853. The town is situated on the N6, north of Stutterheim en route to Komani. Establi ...

). The name was then changed in 1890 to ''Klein Boetsap'', and then finally it was renamed after Rev AJ Olivier (''Olivier'' reversed is ''Reivilo'').http://www.sa-venues.com/attractionsnwp/reivilo.php
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Economy

Reivilo is a traditional farming communinity. The main farming business is cattle, this is dictated by the geology of the area, because there is not enough arable soil for agriculture. Bedrock exists right to the ground surface, being an ancient and hard dolomite, with extraordinary stromatolitic features, representing life forms more than 2 billion years old. There was a successful cheese factory in Reivilo for many years. In the very early 1980s Shell South Africa (Pty) Ltd developed a lead and zinc mine near Reivilo called Pering. It operated successfully for about 18 years and then closed down. Shell mined about 18 million tonnes of ore, containing perhaps 750,000 tonnes of zinc and lead metal from the Pering Mine during that time. At present there is no mining taking place near Reivilo. The town today includes the Reivilo

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". ...

to the north of the town, and a small aeroplane landing strip , to the north-west.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in the Greater Taung Local Municipality Mining communities in South Africa Populated places established in 1883