Paarl

Paarl is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, about 60 kilometers northeast of Cape Town, the seat of the Drakenstein Local Municipality and the largest town in the Cape Winelands. Established in 1657 after a Dutch East India Company official named a granite outcrop de Diamondt en de Peerlberg for the way it glistened after rain, the town takes its name from the Dutch word for pearl; French Huguenot settlers arrived in 1688 and began farming the fertile region. A 2024 estimate put the population at 294,457 across 64.61 square kilometers, and the town is renowned for viticulture and fruit growing, long home to the KWV cooperative wine growers' association, which became an internationally known South African institution. Paarl is also where Nelson Mandela walked free from the nearby Victor Verster Correctional Centre on 11 February 1990 after 27 years of imprisonment.