Paarl, a town in the South African province of Western Cape, is the third oldest colonial settlement in South Africa. The first farms were laid out in 1687. The town itself dates from 1720. A municipality was established in 1840. Paarl is an important wine-making center.
The town was given its name by Abraham Gabbema, a Dutch settler, who recorded that glistening, granite boulders in the area resembled shiny pearls (paarl in Dutch). Paarl Mountain consists of three huge granite outcrops (bare rock formations)—Paarl Rock, Britannia Rock, and Gordon’s Rock. The Khoikhoi people referred to the mountain as “Tortoise Mountain.”
Paarl is an important area in South African history. Huguenots (French Protestants) settled in the district in 1688. South Africa’s oldest church building, constructed in 1805, stands in Paarl. The first newspaper in the Afrikaans language was published there in 1876. A monument to the language dominates Paarl Mountain.
In the mid-1990’s, after the end of South Africa’s racial segregation system called apartheid, Paarl was merged with the black African township of Mbekweni and other nearby communities. In 2000, Paarl, including Mbekweni, was merged with the town of Wellington and other nearby communities to form the Drakenstein local municipality. In 2003, the towns of Gouda, Hermon, and Saron, along with rural areas, were added to Drakenstein. The municipality has a population of 276,800.
