St Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal


St Lucia is a settlement in Umkhanyakude District Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The small town is mainly a hub for the Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park.

History

Evidence of early humans living in the caves up high in the Lebombo Mountains dating back 130,000 years ago provided scientists with clues regarding the lifestyle of these prehistoric settlers. From this cave alone some 69,000 stone implements and various human remains have been recovered. Some of these tools date back to the middle and early stone ages.
St Lucia was first named in 1554 as Rio dos Medos do Ouro by the survivors of the Portuguese ship São Bento. At this stage, only the Tugela River mouth was known as St. Lucia. Later, in 1575, the Tugela River was named Tugela. On 13 December 1575, the day of the feast of Saint Lucy, Manuel Peresterello renamed the mouth area to Santa Lucia.
In 1822, St Lucia was proclaimed by the British as a township. In 1895, St Lucia Game Reserve, 30 km north of the town, was proclaimed. Since 1971, St Lucia Lake and the turtle beaches and coral reefs of Maputaland have been listed by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. In December 1999, the park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Animals in the park

The park is also home to about 1,200 Nile Crocodiles and almost 800 hippopotamuses. Hippos often roam the streets at night.
Other animals include leopards, Greater Kudu, Black Rhinos, rich avifauna and numerous invertebrates.

Climate

Under Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, it has a humid subtropical climate.
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