The district consists of 8 Category B municipalities and 1 DMA; the Mountain Zebra Park.
The local Municipalities are; to the east:
- Emalahleni consisting of Indwe, Ida, Dordrecht & Lady Frere settlement
- Engcobo consisting of Ngcobo, All Saints & Clarkebury settlements
- Intsika Yethu consisting of Tsomo and Cofimvaba towns
- Sakhisizwe consisting of Cala and Elliot towns
To the west…
- Inxuba Yethemba consisting of Cradock & Middelburg
- Inkwanca consisting of Molteno and Sterkstroom towns
- Tsolwana consisting of Tarkastad & Hofmeyr towns, and
And Central...
- Lukhanji consisting of Queenstown and Whittelsea towns
The topography of the area ranges from Karoo plains in the west to the mountainous regions of the east. Rainfall patterns reflect the landscape declining from the east to the west. Overall temperatures fluctuate from cold and freezing in winter towards extreme heat in summer. As a result of this the District contains beautiful natural scenery and is the ideal playground for a wide variety of cultural and sporting activities.
It had a population of 799,134 (Statssa, 2001), which recent estimates put in the region of 810 000 and covers an area of 36,963.8 square kilometres. Approximately 71% of the population reside in rural areas. The largest populations occur in the Intsika Yethu, Lukhanji, Engcobo and Emalahleni municipalities. The population is relatively youthful with just more than half of the population being female (53.76%).
The Chris Hani District Municipality contributes 0.42% towards the national gross domestic product. The majority of this comes from agriculture, community services, construction, and trade. The biggest contributor to the district economy in terms of size, is community services followed by trade and services which remain one of the key contributors to the GGP and the predominant form of economic activity in most of the eight local municipalities.
The District has a comparative advantage in agriculture (including forestry) and services (construction, retail trade services and community services). This is despite the strong growth in the finance, manufacturing and transport sectors.
The District economy is driven by the community services sector, trade (and services) sector and agriculture. The transport sector achieved the highest growth rate of 4.3% between 1996 and 2005, which is highly indicative of the strategic location advantage that the district enjoys in terms of rail and road transport, and as a distribution centre for the former Transkei area. The finance and trade sectors have also grown significantly at 3.8% pa and 3% respectively. Whilst the mining and electricity sectors experienced a negative growth, agriculture and manufacturing outputs have been positive although nominal.
Based on economic analysis and current and future trends, the Growth and Development Summit held in November 2006, identified the following priority areas:
- Agriculture and agro-processing
- Forestry and wood processing
- Tourism
- Construction
- Manufacturing
- Trade and business services
The District Municipality provides an ideal investment opportunity due to its proximity to the ports of East London and Port Elizabeth and its location to the N6 and N 10 routes to Gauteng. In addition the large amounts of available land for agriculture and business and industry development as well as the large pool of available labour make it a desirable business centre.