North West Travel
North West, also known as the ‘Platinum Province’, is centrally located on the subcontinent with direct road and rail links to all southern African countries, and with its own airport near the capital city, Mafikeng. The province borders Botswana and is fringed by the Kalahari desert in the west and the Witwatersrand area in the east.
North West is divided into the Central, Bophirima (towards the west), Southern, Rustenburg and Eastern regions. Most economic activity is concentrated in the Southern Region (between Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp), Rustenburg, and the Eastern Region, where more than 83,3% of GDPR of the province is produced.
Provincial profile
North West is home to Mafikeng, site of the Anglo-Boer/South African War siege.
It boasts the Vredefort Dome World Heritage Site.
North West is blessed with several cultural villages that entertain and enrich.
A number of excellent game reserves have been established, including the Pilanesberg National Park, known as the ‘Jewel of the North West’. It is set in a crater on an extinct volcano and is home to the Big Five as well as a wide variety of smaller game and birds.
The area surrounding Rustenburg and Brits boasts the largest single platinum-production area in the world.
The Platinum Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) is situated on the Coast-to-Coast highway that links the port of Maputo in Mozambique to Walvis Bay in Namibia.
Some of the largest cattle herds in the world are found at Stellaland near Vryburg, which explains why this area is often referred to as the ‘Texas of South Africa’.
