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22-768: Graafwater is a town in the Sandveld in the Western Cape province of South Africa situated 300 km from Cape Town , about halfway between Clanwilliam and Lamberts Bay . Graafwater is the Afrikaans term for "digging for water" referring to the Afrikaans farming culture found in South Africa at the time of establishment. It is located in the Cederberg Municipality . Graafwater is often divided into Graafwater North and Graafwater South. After

44-758: A 180-million-year-old failed rift valley cuts into Southern Africa's central plateau and locally obliterates the Great Escarpment , is known as the Lowveld . The Limpopo and Save rivers run from the central African highlands via the Lowveld into the Indian Ocean to the east. The Limpopo Lowveld extends southwards, east of the Drakensberg escarpment through Mpumalanga Province and ultimately into eastern Eswatini . This southern limb of

66-474: A particular pattern of growth, rarely covering the whole terrain and thus leaving patches of sandy soil exposed on the surface. Some of the typical sandveld species are Acacia haematoxylon , A. luederitzii , Boscia albitrunca , Terminalia sericea , Lonchocarpus nelsii , Bauhinia petersiana and Baphia massaiensis . Hardveld is a term applied to certain rocky soil areas in Botswana, mostly in

88-607: Is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub , especially in the countries of South Africa , Lesotho , Eswatini , Zimbabwe and Botswana . A certain sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa has been officially defined as the Bushveld by the World Wide Fund for Nature . Trees are not abundant—frost, fire and grazing animals allow grass to grow, but prevent the build-up of dense foliage. The word veld ( Afrikaans pronunciation: [fɛlt] ) comes from

110-401: Is a type of semi-arid savanna in which grassland with thorny acacia and certain species of thorny bushes predominate. The predominant plant species are usually different in the thornveld of the plains or in the hill thornveld, where, for example, species of genus Balanites are common. Some of the characteristic species in the thornveld include: Sandveld, in the general sense of the word,

132-517: Is a type of veld characterised by dry, sandy soil, typical of certain areas of the Southern African region. It usually absorbs all water from the seasonal rains, although aquatic habitats, largely seasonal, may be also found in specific places in the sandveld. Only certain hardy plant species thrive in the sandveld environment. These consist especially of grasses forming clumps and certain kinds of trees and shrubs. The sandveld vegetation has

154-490: Is due to the Bushveld igneous complex , an extremely rich saucer-shaped geological formation that stretches over more than 50,000 square kilometers. This formation contains most of the world's reserves of minerals such as andalusite , chromium , fluorspar , platinum and vanadium . The complex includes the Merensky Reef , which is the world's biggest source of platinum as well as platinum-group metals. As most of

176-476: Is the dry season throughout most of Southern Africa. The undisturbed portions of this habitat, such as much of the Waterberg Biosphere , are home to many large mammal species including white rhino , black rhino , giraffe , blue wildebeest , kudu , impala and a variety of additional antelope species and other game. The Bushveld is one of the most mineral -rich regions of the world. This

198-883: The Afrikaans word for "field". The etymological origin is older modern Dutch veldt , a spelling that the Dutch abandoned in favour of veld during the 19th century, decades before the first Afrikaans dictionary. A cognate to the English field , it was spelt velt in Middle Dutch and felt in Old Dutch . The climate of the veld is highly variable, but its general pattern is mild winters from May to September and hot or very hot summers from November to March, with moderate or considerable variations in daily temperatures and abundant sunshine. Precipitation mostly occurs in

220-587: The Limpopo river . These higher, cooler areas (generally more than 1,500 metres or 4,900 feet above sea level) are characterised by flat or gently undulating terrain, vast grasslands and a modified tropical or subtropical climate . To the east, the Highveld's border is marked by the Great Escarpment , or the Mpumalanga Drakensberg . Still, the boundary is often arbitrary and not apparent in

242-532: The Highveld. Temperature is closely related to elevation. In general, the mean July (winter) temperatures range between 7 °C (45 °F) in the Lesotho Highlands and 16 °C (61 °F) in the Lowveld. January (summer) temperatures range between 18 °C (64 °F) and 30 °C (86 °F). In Zimbabwe the precipitation averages around 750–900 millimetres (30–35 in) on the Highveld, dropping to less than 350 millimetres (14 in) in

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264-509: The Lowveld is bounded by South Africa 's border with Mozambique to the east and the northeastern part of Drakensberg to the west. This region is generally hotter and less intensely cultivated than the Highveld. Until the mid-20th century, the Lowveld was still infested by the tsetse fly which transmits the sleeping sickness called nagana among the Zulus . Thornveld (also thorn veld or thornveldt), often referred to as "acacia thornveld",

286-517: The annual rainfall ranges from 350 mm in the west to 600 mm in parts of the northeast. There are four significant mountain ranges in this region: the Magaliesberg which runs from Rustenburg in the west to Bronkhorstspruit in the east and forms the southern border of the Bushveld; the Drakensberg escarpment that forms the eastern border of the Bushveld and runs from Tzaneen in

308-477: The eastern part of the country. The landscape is an undulating plain with scattered rocky hill ranges. There are areas of hardveld also in South Africa in the mountainous central Kamiesberg of the Northern Cape with hilly escarpments and deep river valleys. The soil of the hardveld is characterised by rocky outcrops, as well as an abundance of stones and pebbles of different shapes and sizes. The flora of

330-500: The hardveld is typical of rocky savanna , with denser vegetation and thus less denuded patches than in the sandveld, as well as taller trees. There is also a higher diversity of species in the hardveld compared with the sandveld. Peltophorum africanum , Acacia nigrescens , A. tortilis , Combretum apiculatum and Colophospermum mopane are some of the representative species of the northern hardveld. Bushveld The elevation of this region varies from 750 to 1,400 m and

352-432: The lowest areas of the Lowveld. Temperatures are slightly higher than in South Africa. Over the entire veld, seasonal and annual average rainfall variations of up to 40 percent are common. Damaging drought affects at least half the area about once every three or four years; it reduces plant and animal biomass to sustainable levels again. Everywhere the average number of hours of annual sunshine varies from 60 to 80 percent of

374-556: The north to Belfast in the south; the Waterberg range that is in the middle of the Bushveld and the Soutpansberg range just north of Louis Trichardt . The latter is the northernmost mountain range in South Africa. As implied by the region's name, the Bushveld's grassy plains are dotted by dense clusters of trees and tall shrubs. The grasses found here are generally tall and turn brown or pale in winter (May to August), which

396-462: The other directions. The blesbok and quagga were among the large animals that once roamed on the highveld in great numbers. Nowadays, there still is a sizeable population of springbok in some areas, . However, much of the area is devoted to Balls farming and South Africa's largest conurbation ( Gauteng Province ). The lowlands, below about 500 m (1,640 ft) altitude, along South Africa's northern border with Botswana and Zimbabwe , where

418-520: The railway junction between Cape Town and Bitterfontein was built in 1910, the town Graafwater was established. The local Dutch Reformed Church of Leipoldtville developed the town further. The Graafwater Dutch Reformed church formed its own congregation after a few years. Sandveld Veld ( / v ɛ l t / or / f ɛ l t / ), also spelled veldt , is a type of wide open rural landscape in Southern Africa . Particularly, it

440-426: The region tends to be dry, the Bushveld is mostly beef cattle and game farming country, with only a few drought-resistant crops such as sorghum and millet being farmed, usually under irrigation . The term Middleveld is sometimes used to describe land lying between an elevation of 600 and 1,200 m (2,000 and 3,900 ft) and has been treated as synonymous with the term Bushveld . Towns and cities in

462-643: The summer months in the form of high-energy thunderstorms . Over most of the South African Highveld, the average annual rainfall is between 500–900 millimetres (20–35 in) a year, decreasing to about 250 millimetres (9.8 in) near the western border and increasing to nearly 1,000 millimetres (39 in) in some parts of the Lesotho Highlands ; the South African Lowveld generally receives more precipitation than

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484-462: The total amount possible. Much of the interior of Southern Africa consists of a high plateau, the higher portions 1,500–2,100 m (4,900–6,900 ft) of which are known as the Highveld , starting at the Drakensberg escarpment, 220 km (140 miles) to the east of Johannesburg and sloping gradually downwards to the west and southwest, as well as to the north, through the Bushveld towards

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