The Tugela River ( zu, Thukela; af, Tugelarivier) is the largest river in

KwaZulu-Natal Province 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 locat ...

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 ...

. With a total length of , it is one of the most important rivers of the country. The river originates in Mont-aux-Sources of the

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 ...

Mountains at an elevation of almost 11,000 feet This has a very detailed description of the river's course. and plunges 947 metres down the

Tugela Falls Tugela Falls is a complex of seasonal waterfalls located in the Drakensberg (''Dragon's Mountains'') of Royal Natal National Park in KwaZulu-Natal Province, Republic of South Africa. According to some measurements, it is the world's tallest wate ...

. The Mont-aux-Sources is also the origin of tributaries of two other major South African rivers, the

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

and the

Vaal The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Ocean. I ...

. From the Drakensberg range, the Tugela follows a route through the KwaZulu-Natal midlands before flowing into the Indian Ocean. The total catchment area is approximately . Land uses in the catchment are mainly rural subsistence farming and commercial forestry.

Tributaries

The Tugela has a number of tributaries coming off the

, the largest being the Mzinyathi ("Buffalo") River (rising near Majuba Hill), but also the

Little Tugela River Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...

, Klip River (rising near

Van Reenen Pass A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across ...

), Mooi River, Blood River, Sundays River (rising in the Biggarsberg) Ingagani River and Bushman River. The Buffalo River joins the Tugela some east of Tugela Ferry at . The Blood River was named by the Boers, led by Andries Pretorius, after they defeated the Zulu king Dingane on 16 December 1838, when the river is said to have run red with the blood of Zulu warriors. Below the Blood River is Rorke's Drift, a crossing point and a battle site, in the Anglo-Zulu War.

Ecology

The scaly yellowfish ''(Labeobarbus natalensis)'' is found in the Tugela River System. It is a common endemic fish in KwaZulu-Natal Province and it is found in different habitats between the

foothills and the coastal lowlands, including rivers such as the

Umkomazi The Umkhomazi River is a river in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Course It rises in some of the highest eastwards-facing slopes of the Drakensberg mountains, near the mighty Thabana Ntlenyana. The river flows southeastwards towards the Indian Oce ...

Spelling

The spelling ''Tugela'' was used for most of the twentieth century; it is an Anglicised version of the Zulu name ''Thukela''. Nineteenth-century writers adopted a variety of spellings including: *

Isaacs Isaacs may refer to: * The Isaacs, a bluegrass Southern gospel music group * Isaacs (surname) * Isaacs, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra, Australia * Division of Isaacs, a federal electoral division in Victoria, Australia * Divisi ...

(1836) used a number of different spellings in his book, ''Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa,'' including ''Ootergale'' and ''Ootoogale''. * C.R. Maclean (John Ross), writing in the ''Nautical Magazine'' in 1853, used the spelling ''Zootagoola'' *Angus, a nineteenth-century artist, used the name ''Tugala'' on the captions to his sketches."Making outchoualla or native beer, at Gudu's kraal, Tugala River, Zulu country"
a sketch by G F Angus; National Library of Australia. Some of the variations can be accounted for by the early European writers being unaware that Zulu grammar uses prefixes, often a "''i-''" or a "''u-''", to denote the noun class of a noun. Tugela river mouth

Notes

External links

{{Authority control Tugela River Rivers of KwaZulu-Natal

Tributaries

Ecology

Spelling

See also

Notes

External links