Beaufort West (Afrikaans: Beaufort-Wes) is a town in the Western Cape province in South Africa. It is the largest town in the arid Great Karoo region, and is known as the "Capital of the Karoo". It forms part of the Beaufort West Local Municipality, with 25 000 inhabitants in 2001.
It is the centre of an agricultural district based mainly on sheep farming, and is a significant town on the N1 national road.
Next door to Beaufort West is the Karoo National Park. Important fossils have been found in the area, initially by David Baird, son of the local magistrate in 1827.
As part of a drive to create employment opportunities, a hydroponics project was started and now supplies premium herbs and vegetables nationally.
The old Town Hall and the Dutch Reformed Church have been declared national monuments.
Read more about Beaufort West: History, Famous Residents
Famous quotes containing the word west:
“The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine having yielded their crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become a fiction of the past,—as it is to some extent a fiction of the present,—the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)