Waterberg Plateau

The Waterberg massif sits on the Kaapvaal craton, some 2.7 billion years old, with sedimentary deposition continuing to roughly 1.5 billion years ago, producing today's mesas, buttes and kopjes with cliffs up to 550m. Nearby Makapansgat has yielded Australopithecus africanus fossils, and San people entered the region roughly 2,000 years ago, leaving rock paintings at Lapalala.

White settlers arrived from 1808. Modimolle (formerly Nylstroom) was named in 1866 by Voortrekkers who mistook the local river for the Nile; Thabazimbi ('mountain of iron') was named for iron ore found in 1919.

The conservation era transformed the region: Lapalala Wilderness, founded in 1981, was the first privately protected area in South Africa to reintroduce black rhinoceros. Marakele National Park was founded in 1994, and disease-free buffalo were reintroduced in 2013, completing the Big Five. In 2001, UNESCO designated the Waterberg Biosphere Reserve — the first region in the northern part of South Africa to receive the designation.