Sutherland is a town with about 2,841 inhabitants in the Northern Cape 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 lies in the western

Roggeveld Mountains 250px, Foothills of the Roggeveld escarpment, as seen from the Tankwa Karoo National Park The Roggeveld Mountains (Rye-Veld Mountains) (Afrikaans: Roggeveldberge) is a mountain range situated mainly in the Northern Cape province of South Afri ...

in the Karoo.

History

Sutherland was founded in 1855 as a church and market town to serve the area's sheep farmers. By 1872 the town had a population of 138 registered citizens living in 19 houses. The large

Dutch Reformed church The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

in the centre of Sutherland was built in 1899. During the

Anglo 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 South ...

the church was used as a fort by garrisoned British soldiers. During the war a number of engagements between British and Boer forces occurred in the town. In one such engagement a force of 250 Boer commandos attacked the local British garrison for 10 hours. The ruins of a fort can be found on the outskirts of town on the hill called Rebelskop. This was named after this engagement.

Economy

Major economic activities include tourism and sheep farming. The area includes at least twelve registered B&B's, guest houses and guest farms. The nearby

South African Astronomical Observatory South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) is the national centre for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. It was established in 1972. The observatory is run by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. The facility's funct ...

also plays a significant role in the town's economy and is a major driver of tourism to the area. The town also has a number of bars, restaurants and an amateur astronomy observatory that service the tourism sector. Sutherland has recently gained in popularity, with many Capetonians buying property in the town and many more visiting on weekends and vacations.

Geography

Sutherland's arid climate and remote location above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

make its night skies among the world's clearest and darkest. The telescopes of the

are nearby at . These include the

Southern African Large Telescope The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a 10-metre class optical telescope designed mainly for spectroscopy. It consists of 91 hexagonal mirror segments each with a 1-metre inscribed diameter, resulting in a total hexagonal mirror of 11.1 ...

(SALT), the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere.

Climate

Sutherland is the coldest town in South Africa, although the farm Buffelsfontein near Molteno holds the official lowest temperature record in Continental South Africa, of . The South African

Prince Edward Islands The Prince Edward Islands are two small uninhabited islands in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean that are part of South Africa. The islands are named Marion Island (named after Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, 1724–1772) and Prince Edward Island ...

have experienced significantly lower temperatures, however, these islands have sub-Antarctic, highland climates and are located well to the southeast of mainland South Africa. Snowfall in Sutherland is common in winter, And precipitation ranges from 170mm to 300mm mostly in the form of rain. The coldest temperature recorded in Sutherland was on 12 July 2003,South African Weather Service
And the lowest Daytime temperature was recorded at -6 °C on 2 August 2012. Sutherland has a

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of sem ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

'' ''BSk''''). The climate record is sparse; the data below is drawn from the 2017-2020 records.

Notable residents

Notable residents of Sutherland include: * NP van Wyk Louw, famous Afrikaner poet and elder brother of WEG Louw was born in Sutherland. *

WEG Louw William Ewart Gladstone Louw (31 May 1913 in Sutherland, Northern Cape, Sutherland, formerly Cape Province, now Northern Cape Province in South Africa – 24 April 1980 in Stellenbosch, Western Cape Province, South Africa), was an Afrikaner poet a ...

, famous Afrikaner poet and younger brother of NP van Wyk Louw was born in Sutherland. * Dr Henry Olivier, chief engineer of the Kariba Dam project and contributing inventor of the Mulberry Harbours was born in Sutherland. * Adriaan Vlok, national government minister of Law and Order from 1986 to 1991 was born in Sutherland. * André van der Merwe, a famous South African urologist born in Sutherland.

References

External links

South African Astronomical Observatory website

Discover Sutherland
*
Sutherland on www.karoo-southafrica.co.za
{{Namakwa District Municipality Populated places in the Karoo Hoogland Local Municipality Karoo Populated places established in 1858 1858 establishments in the British Empire