Port Elizabeth is a leading seaport and industrial city in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. Port Elizabeth lies on Algoa Bay, on the southeastern coast of South Africa. The largest industry in the area is automobile manufacturing.
Tourists visit Port Elizabeth for its beaches. Other local attractions include the city’s oceanarium and Addo Elephant National Park.
The land that is now Port Elizabeth was once inhabited by Khoikhoi and San people. Portuguese explorers landed there in the 1400’s. Fort Frederick, a military camp set up in 1799, was the first permanent British settlement in the district. In 1820, 4,000 British settlers landed in the area. They settled in and near Grahamstown, northeast of the city. Sir Rufane Donkin, acting governor of the Cape Colony, named the town after his late wife, Elizabeth. Port Elizabeth was declared a city in 1913.
In the mid-1990’s, after the end of South Africa’s racial segregation system called apartheid, Port Elizabeth was merged with several nearby Black African areas, including KwaDwesi, KwaMagxaki, Kwazakhele, Motherwell, New Brighton, Soweto-on-Sea, Walmer Township, and Zwide. At the same time, the neighboring city of Uitenhage was merged with the nearby Black African areas of Kwanobuhle and KwaLanga. By 2001, the Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage urban areas, the town of Despatch, the Coega industrial development zone, and the surrounding communities and rural areas had been merged to form the Nelson Mandela metropolitan municipality (later renamed Nelson Mandela Bay). The municipality has a population of 1,190,496.
