Porterville is a town in the

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. The town is located at the foot of the Olifants River Mountains, 27 km south-east of Piketberg and 155 km north-east of Cape Town. It is situated 140 km north of

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

on R44 road at the base of the Olifants River mountains. The Dasklip Pass to the surrounding Groot Winterhoek mountains is located 14 km outside of the town. The Soom Shale, a notable deposit of Late Ordovician period fossils, is located near the town. Agriculture in the area is dominated by wheat production. The closest towns are Piketberg to the west, Saron to the south, and Eendekuil and Citrusdal to the north.

History

Prior to European settlement the area was inhabited by Khoikhoin nomadic pastoralists. The town was laid out in 1863 on a portion of Pomona farm owned by F.J. Owen. It was previously called Willems Vallei and was owned by Willem Berger. The town was established in 1863 and named after William Porter, who served as Attorney General of the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), 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. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

from 1839 to 1866, and became a municipality in 1903.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census, Porterville has a population of 7,057 people divided into 1,949 households. The census identifies residents' first languages as 96.0%

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

, 1.9% English and 2.1% other. Within the population, 76.4% of residents identified themselves as " Coloured", 21.0% as "

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

" and 1.6% as "

Black African Black is a racial classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and ofte ...

". Porterville has an area of about 7.98 square km, with a density of 884.3 per square km. Minor area differences exist between figures extracted from the 2001 and 2011 censuses.

Notable people

* Pieter Grobbelaar, South African

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

military commander was born in Porterville. * Nataniël le Roux, South African TV personality, singer,

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

, and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

* Whitey Basson, South African businessman, former CEO of Shoprite Holdings Ltd, was born in Porterville.

References

{{Authority control Populated places established in 1863 Populated places in the Bergrivier Local Municipality