Qualla: Pietermaritzburg

Pietermaritzburg: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Guus Gorter, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nobody can agree on who the city is named after. One theory says Pietermaritzburg honors two Voortrekker leaders - Piet Retief and Gert Maritz - who led the Boer settlers into Natal in the late 1830s. The other theory says it was named for Piet Retief alone, whose full name was Pieter Maurits Retief, making the city originally 'Pieter Maurits Burg.' Either way, the Zulu name cuts through the debate entirely: umGungundlovu, popularly translated as 'Place of the Elephant,' a title traditionally taken by the Zulu monarch. The elephant, it seems, was here before anyone thought to argue about naming rights. Founded after the Voortrekkers defeated the Zulu king Dingane at the Battle of Blood River, briefly the capital of a Boer republic, then seized by Britain in 1843, Pietermaritzburg has been accumulating layers of contested history ever since.

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Image: Guus Gorter | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pietermaritzburg: Red Brick and Organ Pipes

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The City Hall dominates Pietermaritzburg's central business district like a Victorian-era exclamation mark. Built from red brick, it holds the distinction of being the largest red brick building in the Southern Hemisphere - a claim that sounds improbable until you stand beneath i...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Pietermaritzburg: From Boer Republic to British Colony

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elefuntboy at en.wikipedia., Public domain. The Voortrekkers who founded Pietermaritzburg in the late 1830s had trekked hundreds of kilometers from the Cape Colony to escape British rule. The irony was not long in arriving. Their short-lived Boer republic, Natalia, lasted barely five years before Britain annexed the territ...

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Image: Elefuntboy at en.wikipedia. | Public domain

Pietermaritzburg: The Comrades Run

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Upjav, CC0. Every May, approximately 20,000 runners attempt one of the most grueling ultramarathons on Earth. The Comrades Marathon covers roughly 89 kilometers between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, alternating annually between the 'up run' - from Durban's sea level to Pietermaritzburg's inla...

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Image: Upjav | CC0

Pietermaritzburg: Gardens, Zebras, and Thieving Monkeys

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AJF-871216, CC BY-SA 4.0. Above the city, Queen Elizabeth Park spreads across the hills with zebra, buck, and other game roaming freely - no fences, no dangerous predators, just open parkland where you can walk without worry. The main hazard, locals will tell you, is the monkeys: vervet monkeys that have ...

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Image: AJF-871216 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pietermaritzburg: Crossroads of the Midlands

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vasiliymeshko, CC BY 3.0. Pietermaritzburg sits on the N3 freeway that connects Durban, fifty minutes to the east, with Johannesburg, six hundred kilometers to the northwest. It is the kind of city that travelers pass through on their way to somewhere else - the Drakensberg Mountains lie two hours to the ...

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Image: Vasiliymeshko | CC BY 3.0