Makhanda, South Africa

Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 75,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about 125 kilometres (80 mi) northeast of Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) and 160 kilometres (100 mi) southwest of East London. It is the largest town in the Makana Local Municipality, and the seat of the municipal council. It also hosts Rhodes University, the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court, the South African Library for the Blind (SALB), a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and 6 South African Infantry Battalion. Furthermore, located approximately 3 km south-east of the town lies Waterloo Farm, the only estuarine fossil site in the world from 360 million years ago with exceptional soft-tissue preservation.

The town's official name-change from Grahamstown to Makhanda was officially on 29 June 2018. The new name of Makhanda was chosen in memory of Xhosa warrior and prophet Makhanda ka Nxele.

In 2025, the city was listed as the country's worst-performing municipality, with levels of infrastructural collapse, and the South African Human Rights Commission began investigating service delivery failures in the ANC-run municipality.

Grahamstown was founded in 1812 after the Fourth Xhosa War as a military outpost by Lieutenant-Colonel John Graham as part of a campaign to secure the Eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. Initially Colonel Graham decided to establish his headquarters on the loan farm Noutoe, now known as Table Farm, but at the recommendation of Ensign Andries Stockenstrom it was moved to the homestead of the loan farm De Rietfontein, belonging to Lucas Meyer. Construction on the new headquarters, located on the site of the present Church Square, thus began in June 1812.

As part of the campaign, Graham was ordered to clear 20,000 Xhosa living in the region led by Ndlambe ka Rharhabe from the Zuurveld. During the campaign, which formed part of the Xhosa Wars, Graham ordered the adoption of numerous scorched earth tactics, which included the burnings of Xhosa farms. By 1812, Graham had completed his assignment, and transformed Grahamstown into the central military outpost in the region.

On 22 April 1819, a large number of Xhosa warriors, under the leadership of Nxele (or the Xhosa prophet Makhanda), launched an attack against the British garrison stationed at Grahamstown. The Xhosas had warned Colonel Willshire, the commanding officer, of their planned attack on the settlement. It was one of countless attacks launched on the nascent colony by the Xhosas. During the course of the battle, the British were running low on ammunition. The Xhosas, with a force of 10,000 troops under the overall command of Ndlambe's warrior son, Mdushane, were unable to overpower the garrison of some 300 men. Nxele surrendered and was taken captive and imprisoned on Robben Island. On Christmas Day in 1819, he tried to escape but drowned in the attempt.

Grahamstown grew during the 1820s, as many 1820 Settlers and their families left farming to establish themselves in more secure trades. In 1833, Grahamstown was described as having "two or three English merchants of considerable wealth, but scarcely any society in the ordinary sense of the word. The Public Library is a wretched affair". As of 1833, it was estimated that the population of Grahamstown was approximately 6,000. In a few decades it became the Cape Colony's largest town after Cape Town. It became a bishopric in 1852. It was traditionally the capital and cultural centre of the Albany area, a district that was traditionally English-speaking and had a distinctive local culture.

In 1872, the Cape Government Railways began construction of the railway line linking Grahamstown to Port Alfred on the coast and to the developing national railway network inland. It was completed and opened on 3 September 1879.