The Stormberg is a range of mountains situated in the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

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 ...

, are an easterly extension of the

Bamboesberg The Bamboesberg is a mountain range in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This range was named for the bamboo '' Thamnocalamus tessellatus'' growing in its ravines. The Bamboesberg is an outlier of the Stormberg Mountains and part of the range is se ...

e and form an outlier of the greater

Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Afrikaans: Drakensberge, Zulu: uKhahlambha, Sotho: Maluti) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau. The Great Escarpment reaches its greatest elevation – within th ...

mountain range. They form part of the ' Amatola and Stormberg' region which includes major towns like

Grahamstown Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London, Eastern Cape, East London. Makhanda is the lar ...

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

and

Port Alfred A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...

. Towns in the Stormberg Mountains include Sterkstroom, Jamestown,

Molteno Molteno (; lmo, label= Brianzöö, Mültée) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and a hill-top town in the Province of Lecco in the Italian region Lombardy, located about northeast of Milan and about southwest of Lecco. As of 31 December 2004, it h ...

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...

Barkly East Barkly East is a town in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, seat of the Joe Gqabi District Municipality, and 117 km by road E.S.E. of Aliwal North, lying in the mountainous area just south of Lesotho. The town lies at the southern tip of t ...

Rhodes Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...

and Steynsburg. South Africa's only ski resort,

Tiffindell Tiffindell Ski Resort is a year-round alpine resort, the only ski resort in South Africa and one of the two ski resorts in Southern Africa. It was established in 1993 in the Southern Drakensberg, Tiffindell is rated number 19 on CNN's "Top 100 Ski ...

, is also situated in these mountains.

Geology

Geologically, the mountains form part of the Stormberg Series of the

Karoo System The Karoo Supergroup is the most widespread stratigraphic unit in Africa south of the Kalahari Desert. The supergroup consists of a sequence of units, mostly of nonmarine origin, deposited between the Late Carboniferous and Early Jurassic, a peri ...

where some of the only workable coal seams in the Cape are to be found. These coal fields are being explored for possible

coal bed methane extraction Coalbed methane extraction (CBM extraction) is a method for extracting methane from a coal deposit. Coal bed methane (CBM) is one of the factors restricting safe production of coal in underground coal mines. It is also a form of high-quality energ ...

History

These mountains - like all of South Africa - was originally home to the

Khoisan Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in t ...

hunter gatherers. The Nguni migrations saw the arrival of the

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 ...

herders from the north and the displacement of the Khoisan. The subsequent arrival of the Cape colonists in the area resulted in a series of ' frontier wars' which led to the region's incorporation into the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...

. During the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

, this was the site of the

Battle of Stormberg The Battle of Stormberg was the first British defeat of Black Week, in which three successive British forces were defeated by Boer irregulars in the Second Boer War. Background When the British first drew up a plan of campaign against the Boer r ...

, fought on 9 December 1899.

Gallery

File:R390 road-001.JPG, Highway R390 between

Venterstad Venterstad is a settlement in Walter Sisulu Local Municipality in Joe Gqabi District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Town 43 km south-east of Norvalspont and 65 km west of Burgersdorp It was laid out in 1875 ...

and Steynsburg File:R56 Road-001.JPG, Highway R56 between Steynsburg and Molteno File:Wilson-stormberg-map-121.jpg, Positions at the

, 1899

References

{{Authority control Mountain ranges of the Eastern Cape

Geology

History

Gallery

See also

References