Saldanha Bay Municipality is a local municipality located within the

West Coast District Municipality The West Coast District Municipality is a district municipality located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its municipality code is DC1. Moorreesburg is the seat of the district. As of 2011 it had a total population of 391,766. Geograp ...

, 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 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 ...

. it had a population of 99,193. Its municipality code is WC014.

Geography

The municipality covers a total area of which includes the West Coast Peninsula (also known as the

Vredenburg Vredenburg is a town of the Cape West Coast in the Western Cape province of South Africa. "Vrede" is Afrikaans for peace. It is the transportation and commercial hub of the West Coast area and administrative centre of the Saldanha Bay Local Mun ...

Peninsula) and stretches southeast to include the

West Coast National Park The West Coast National Park lies north of Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The park is found inside of the Cape West Coast Biosphere Reserve, part of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme. It is bordered by the At ...

and the area around Hopefield. It abuts on the Bergrivier Municipality to the north and the Swartland Municipality to the east and south. According to the 2011 census the municipality has a population of 99,193 people in 28,835 households. Of this population, 55.8% describe themselves as " Coloured", 24.5% as "

Black African Black is a Racialization, racialized classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have ...

", and 18.0% as "

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

". The first language of 72.5% of the population is

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

, while 16.4% speak

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

, 6.6% speak

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and 1.2% speak Sotho. The seat of the municipality and its largest town is

, which is situated in the center of the eponymous peninsula and according to the 2011 census has a population of 38,382. To the south of Vredenburg is the harbour town of

Saldanha Saldanha may refer to: Places South Africa * Saldanha Bay, a bay in Western Cape * Saldanha, Western Cape, a town on the bay * Saldanha Bay Local Municipality, the unit of government that administers the Saldanha Bay region Other countries * Sal ...

(pop. 28,142) on the edge of

Saldanha Bay Saldanha Bay ( af, Saldanhabaai) is a natural harbour on the south-western coast of South Africa. The town that developed on the northern shore of the bay, also called Saldanha, was incorporated with five other towns into the Saldanha Bay Local ...

. There are several other fishing and holiday towns on the coast of the municipality:

St Helena Bay Saint Helena Bay ( af, St. Helenabaai) is a settlement in West Coast District Municipality in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Nicknamed by locals as ''Agterbaai'',''St Helena Bay.'' CapeWestCoast.org. http://www.capewestcoast.org/reg ...

(pop. 11,529) on the northern coast of the Vredenburg Peninsula, Paternoster (pop. 1,971) and Jacobsbaai (pop. 416) on the western coast of the peninsula, and

Langebaan Langebaan is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa on the eastern shore of Langebaan Lagoon. Langebaan is situated 120 km north of Cape Town, just off the R27, about 28 km from Vredenburg and 20 km from Saldanha Bay. ...

(pop. 8,297) on the opposite side of Saldanha Bay from Saldanha. In the interior of the municipality is the town of Hopefield (pop. 6,460) and the village and air force base at

Langebaanweg Langebaanweg is a town on the southwest coast of South Africa, in Western Cape Province. It is the location of the air force base AFB Langebaanweg. Langebaanweg has been an important mining center, with its mai minerals consisting of phosphori ...

(pop. 952).

History

The towns of

and

were united under a single Vredenburg-Saldanha Municipality in 1975. At the end of the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

era, in the area that is today the Saldanha Bay Municipality there were also municipal councils for Hopefield,

and

. These councils were elected by the

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

residents, while the coloured residents of the towns were governed by management committees subordinate to the white councils. While the negotiations to end apartheid were taking place a process was established for local authorities to negotiate voluntary mergers. Hopefield took part in this process, merging the municipal council with the management committee in November 1992. Langebaan did the same in April 1993. After the national elections of 1994 a process of local government transformation began, in which negotiations were held between the existing local authorities, political parties, and local community organisations. As a result of these negotiations, the existing local authorities were dissolved and transitional local councils (TLCs) were created in January 1995. The Hopefield and Langebaan municipalities were each replaced with a TLC. The West Coast Peninsula TLC replaced the Vredenburg-Saldanha Municipality, the St Helena Bay Municipality, and their respective management committees. The transitional councils were initially made up of members nominated by the various parties to the negotiations, until May 1996 when elections were held. At these elections the West Coast District Council was established, replacing the West Coast Regional Services Council. Transitional representative councils (TRCs) were also elected to represent rural areas outside the TLCs on the District Council; the area that was to become Bergrivier Municipality included part of the Malmesbury TRC. At the local elections of December 2000 the TLCs and TRCs were dissolved and the Saldanha Bay Municipality was established as a single local authority incorporating both rural and urban areas. In 2006 the boundary of the municipality was adjusted slightly to transfer a strip of land on the left bank of the Berg River (adjacent to Velddrif) to the Bergrivier Local Municipality. In 2011 the

, previously a District Management Areas, was added to the municipality when District Management Areas were abolished.

Politics

The municipal council consists of twenty-seven members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Fourteen councillors are elected by

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

in fourteen wards, while the remaining thirteen are chosen from party lists so that the total number of party representatives is proportional to the number of votes received. In the election of 1 November 2021 the Democratic Alliance (DA) won a plurality of thirteen seats on the council. The following table shows the results of the 2021 election.

References

External links

Official website

Saldanha Bay Local Municipality on the Western Cape Government website
{{Municipalities of the Western Cape Local municipalities of the West Coast District Municipality