About Durban

Durban is South Africa’s third largest city. It is the largest city in KwaZulu-Natal and the largest on the east coast of Africa. Durban forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famously as the busiest port in Africa. The city's beaches and warm subtropical climate makes it a major centre for tourism.

According to carbon dating of rock art found in the Drakensberg, the first known inhabitants of the area arrived from the north around 100,000 BC. They were living in the central plains of KwaZulu-Natal until the expansion of Bantu people from the north.

There is no written history of the area before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. He landed on the KwaZulu-Natal coast on Christmas in 1497 and named the area Natal, meaning Christmas in Portuguese.

Modern Durban dates from 1824, when a group of 25 men under British Lieutenant F. G. Farewell arrived from the Cape Colony and established a settlement of the Bay of Natal. Accompanying Farewell was an adventurer named Henry Francis Fynn. He was able to befriend the Zulu King Shaka by helping him to recover from a stab wound he suffered in combat. As a token of Shaka's appreciation, he granted Fynn a 25-mile strip of coast.

During a meeting of white residents in Fynn's territory in, 1835, it was decided to build a capital town. They named it d'Urban after Sir Benjamin d'Urban, then governor of the Cape Colony. Voortrekkers established the Republic of Natalia in 1838 just north of Durban, and established a capital at Pietermaritzburg.

Conflict with the Zulu population led to the evacuation of Durban. The Afrikaners finally accepted British annexation in 1844 under military pressure. A British governor was appointed to the region with many settlers emigrating from to the Cape Colony from Europe. The British established a sugar cane industry in the 1860s. The British brought thousands of indentured labourers from, as a result of the importation of Indian labourers, Durban became the largest Asian community in South Africa.