Kwazulu Natal, province in South Africa, on the Indian Ocean. Formerly Natal province, in
the new constitution of 1994 it was renamed Kwazulu-Natal.
It is a province with a subtropical coastline, sweeping savanna in the east
and the magnificent Drakensberg mountain range in the west. The warm Indian
Ocean washing its beaches makes it one of the country's most popular holiday
destinations.
Durban is one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the world. Its port is
the busiest in South Africa and also one of the 10 largest in the world.
Kwazulu-Natal is the only province with a monarchy specifically provided for in
its Constitution. The Kwazulu-Natal
coastal belt yields sugar cane, wood, oranges, bananas, mangoes and other
tropical fruit.
Some of South Africa's best-protected indigenous coastal forests are found
along the subtropical coastline of Kwazulu-Natal, for example at Dukuduku and
Kosi Bay. It is also along this coast that the magnificent St Lucia Estuary and
Kosi Bay lakes are located. In 1999, the Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park was
declared a World Heritage Site.
The province, historic home to the Zulu nation, stretches along 600
kilometres of balmy Indian Ocean coastline from the Transkei region in the south
to the Mozambique border in the north. Durban is also a premier vacation playground, a fun-in-the-sun place popular
for its seductive climate, its warm blue waters and broad sands, for the subtropical
luxuriance of its gardens and parks, for its hotels, restaurants and
entertainment complexes - and for the wonderfully exotic world created by the
city's large Indian community.
Farther to the north, you'll find some of Africa's finest Game and Nature
Reserves. The region, known as Maputaland, is warm, well-watered, lush, and it
provides ideal habitats for a quite remarkable number and variety of animals.
The wildlife can be seen at its most prolific in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park, but
other protected areas are just as notable in their own way - Ndumo for the
richness of its floodplain, Itala for its rugged splendour, Tembe for its
elephants, Sibaya and Kosi Bay for their tropical lakes, the huge Greater St
Lucia Wetlands Park for its extraordinary diversity, a mix of lake, lagoon,
river, swampland, savannah, marine reserve and offshore coral reef.
Running 300 kilometres along Kwazulu-Natal's western border is a massive,
often snow-capped rampart known as the Drakensberg ('dragon's mountain'), some
of whose precipitous faces plunge down, almost sheer, for more than 2000 metres
to the uplands and coastal plain below. The mountains are a spectacular fantasia
of cliff, jagged peak and deep ravine sculpted over the millennia by rain, river
and wind, and their beauty and grandeur in all seasons is unparalleled anywhere
in the country.
Air Tickets Online -
