St Lucia is a settlement in Umkhanyakude District Municipality in the

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

province of South Africa. The small town is mainly a hub for the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

History

Evidence of early humans living in the caves up high in the Lebombo Mountains dating back 130,000 years ago provided scientists with clues regarding the lifestyle of these

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

settlers. From this cave alone some 69,000 stone implements and various human remains have been recovered. Some of these tools date back to the middle and early stone ages (130,000 to 30,000 years ago). St Lucia was first named in 1554 as ''Rio dos Medos do Ouro'' (alternatively ''Rio dos Médãos do Ouro'' — ''River of the Gold Dunes'') by the survivors of the Portuguese ship São Bento. At this stage, only the Tugela River mouth was known as St. Lucia. Later, in 1575, the Tugela River was named Tugela. On 13 December 1575, the day of the feast of Saint Lucy, Manuel Peresterello renamed the mouth area to Santa Lucia. In 1822, St Lucia was proclaimed by the British as a township. In 1895, St Lucia Game Reserve, 30 km north of the town, was proclaimed. Since 1971, St Lucia Lake and the turtle beaches and coral reefs of Maputaland have been listed by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance ( Ramsar Convention). In December 1999, the park was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Demographics

The largest ethnic group in St Lucia are White South Africans of English descent who make up 30.9% of St Lucia residents. The second largest ethnic group in St. Lucia are Zulu people, who make up 26.4% of St Lucia residents.

Animals in the park

The park is also home to about 1,200 Nile Crocodiles and almost 800 hippopotamuses. Hippos often roam the streets at night. Other animals include leopards, Greater Kudu, Black Rhinos, rich avifauna and numerous invertebrates.Perissinotto, R., Taylor, R.H., Carrasco, N.K. & Fox, C. 2013. Observations on the bloom-forming jellyfish ''Crambionella stuhlmanni'' (Chun, 1896) in the St Lucia Estuary, South Africa. '' African Invertebrates'' 54 (1): 161–17

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Climate

Under Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, it has a

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...

(Cfa).

References

External links

* http://www.isimangaliso.com Populated places in the Mtubatuba Local Municipality {{KwaZuluNatal-geo-stub