Gqeberha

Gqeberha (pronounced keb-AIR-khə in English, or [ᶢǃʱɛ̀ɓéːxà] in Xhosa) is a major seaport and the largest city in South Africa's Eastern Cape province. Often called by its former name, Port Elizabeth, or simply P.E., it serves as the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality—the country's second-smallest metro area by size. As the sixth-most populous city in South Africa, it functions as the Eastern Cape's cultural, economic, and financial center.

The city was founded in 1820 as Port Elizabeth by Sir Rufane Donkin, then acting governor of the Cape Colony. He named it after his wife, Elizabeth, who had died in India; the Donkin Memorial in the central business district commemorates this. The settlement was established when 4,000 British colonists arrived in Algoa Bay to reinforce the border between the Cape Colony and the Xhosa. Known as "The Friendly City" or "The Windy City," it was officially renamed Gqeberha in 2021. The Eastern Cape Geographical Names Committee proposed the change in 2019, adopting the Xhosa and Southern Khoe name for the Baakens River that runs through the city. The new name was gazetted on 23 February 2021.

Situated on the western side of Algoa Bay along South Africa's southeastern coast, Gqeberha lies 770 kilometers east of Cape Town. It is east of the Garden Route and faces the Indian Ocean, covering 251 square kilometers within the Nelson Mandela Bay metro area. The city enjoys a warm oceanic climate, often ranked among the world's best for pleasant year-round weather. It is known for its many blue-flag beaches along the urban coastline, its popularity as a holiday destination for both international and local visitors, and its rich, diverse cultural heritage. Gqeberha also serves as a gateway to the Eastern Cape's adventure tourism, outdoor activities, and African big five game safari experiences.

**Etymology**

The official name Gqeberha, adopted on 23 February 2021, is a Xhosa word for the Baakens River that flows through the city. In 1820, the growing seaport of Algoa Bay was named "Port Elizabeth" in memory of Elizabeth Frances (née Markham), wife of acting Cape Governor Sir Rufane Shaw Donkin. Xhosa speakers also know the settlement as iBhayi or eBhayi, a Xhosa adaptation of the Afrikaans "die Baai" (meaning "the Bay"), a term later adopted by English-speaking colonists.

**History**

**Prehistory** Cave sites in the area—Albany, Wilton, and Howieson's Poort—have given their names to archaeological cultures. Howieson's Poort, dating to 65,000–62,000 years ago, is especially significant for understanding the origins of fully modern human behavior, yielding extremely early evidence of bow-and-arrow hunting and shell-bead jewelry. Earlier and Middle Stone Age stone tools have been found in the Sundays River Valley. At Amanzi Springs, 40 kilometers north of Gqeberha near Addo, Earlier Stone Age artifacts are preserved in situ with well-preserved plant and animal remains within spring sediments (Deacon, 1970). Later Stone Age material is preserved in caves and rock shelters, such as Melkhoutboom Cave, in the Cape Fold Mountain Belt surrounding the city (see Deacon and Deacon, 1963; Deacon, 1976; Binneman, 1997). Large numbers of coastal shell middens have been reported at Humewood, St Georges Strand, and the Coega River Mouth (Rudner, 1968). More recently, Binneman and Webley (1997) reported thirteen shell middens and stone tool scatters about 500 meters east of the Coega River mouth during an archaeological assessment for the development of maritime infrastructure at the Port of Ngqura. Some of this material was recorded in secondary context within gravels from older river terraces along the Coega River's banks.

**Early History** Hunters and gatherers ancestral to the San first settled the area around Algoa Bay at least 10,000 years ago. About 2,000 years ago, they were gradually assimilated by agriculturalist populations ancestral to the Xhosa people.

**British Settlement** The first Europeans to visit the area were Portuguese explorers Bartholomeu Dias, who landed on St Croix Island in Algoa Bay in 1488, and Vasco da Gama, who noted nearby Bird Island in 1497. For centuries, the area appeared on European navigation charts as "a landing place with fresh water." The area later became part of the Cape Colony, a region with a turbulent history from the Dutch East India Company's settlement in 1652 to the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

In 1799, during the first British occupation of the Colony amid the Napoleonic Wars, British troops built a stone fort named Fort Frederick after the Duke of York. Built to deter a possible French landing, it overlooked the site that later became Gqeberha. The fort is now preserved as a monument. From 1814 to 1821, the Strandfontein farm south of the Baakens River was owned by Piet Retief, who later became a Voortrekker leader and was killed in 1837 by Zulu king Dingane during land negotiations; an estimated 500 men, women, and children of his party died. Frederik Korsten, after whom the suburb of Korsten is named, owned the farm after Retief. This area was later developed as Summerstrand, a beachfront suburb. In 1820, a party of 4,000 British settlers arrived by sea, encouraged by the Cape Colony government to strengthen the border region with the Xhosa. At that time, the seaport town was founded by acting Governor Sir Rufane Shaw Donkin. Diplomat Edmund Roberts also visited the area.