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

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 ...

. 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 t ...

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. From the Drakensberg range, the Tugela follows a route through the KwaZulu-Natal midlands before flowing into the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

. 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,

Klip River The Klip River is the main river draining the portion of Johannesburg south of the Witwatersrand, and its basin includes the Johannesburg CBD and Soweto. The mouth of the river is at Vereeniging where it empties into the Vaal River, which is a tri ...

(rising near Van Reenen Pass), Mooi River,

Blood River Blood River ( af, Bloedrivier; zu, Ncome) is situated in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This river has its sources in the hills south-east of Utrecht; leaving the highlands it is joined by two important tributaries that originate in the Schurvebe ...

Sundays River The !Khukaǁgamma or Sundaysriver ( af, Sondagsrivier) is a river in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is said to be the fastest flowing river in the country. The Inqua Khoi people, who historically were the wealthiest group in Sou ...

(rising in the Biggarsberg) Ingagani River and

Bushman River The Bushman's River ( af, Boesmansrivier) is an east to north-easterly flowing tributary of the Tugela River, in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. It rises in the Drakensberg Mountain range, with its upper catchment in the Giant's Cas ...

. The Buffalo River joins the Tugela some east of

Tugela Ferry Tugela Ferry is a town on the northern bank of the Tugela River, in central KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. During the apartheid era it formed part of the KwaZulu homeland, and at present it is included in the Umzinyathi District Municipality. The to ...

at . The

was named by the Boers, led by Andries Pretorius, after they defeated the

Zulu king This article lists the Zulu monarchs, including chieftains and kings of the Zulu royal family from their earliest known history up to the present time. Pre-Zulu The Zulu King lineage stretches to as far as Luzumana, who is believed to have li ...

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 The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Following the passing of the British North America Act of 1867 forming a federation in Canada, Lord Carnarvon thought that a similar political effort, cou ...

Ecology

The scaly yellowfish ''(Labeobarbus natalensis)'' is found in the Tugela River System. It is a common

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

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.

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 (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 Zulu grammar is the way in which meanings are encoded into wordings in the Zulu language. Zulu grammar is typical for Bantu languages, bearing all the hallmarks of this language family. These include agglutinativity, a rich array of noun classes ...

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