Kokstad is a farming town situated at the intersection of the R56 Provincial Route and the R617 Regional Route in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. It is a centre for cheese and other dairy products.
Kokstad is located approximately 10 km from the Eastern Cape border on the N2 National Route, which passes south of the town’s CBD.
The N2 Highway leads from Kokstad to the east to Port Shepstone (175 km), Durban (380 km), and to the south Mount Ayliff (57 km), Mthatha (180 km), East London (419 km), and Qonce (447 km).
The R56 leads from Kokstad to Cedarville (45 km), Matatiele (68 km), and Maluti, leading to the border of Lesotho. The R617 is also a bisecting route leading from Kokstad to Underberg (109 km), Swartberg (41 km), and Bulwer (147 km).
Kokstad is the main town and administrative centre/seat of the Greater Kokstad Local Municipality, which is part of the Harry Gwala District Municipality.
The town was built around Mount Currie, a local mountain range, and is named after its founder, the Griqua chief Adam Kok III, who settled here in 1863. Stad is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for “city”.
The town is built on the outer slopes of the Drakensberg and is 1,302 m above sea level. Behind it, Mount Currie rises to a height of 2,224 m.
The majority of residents can speak IsiXhosa as well as IsiZulu.
Kokstad has no rural villages to date. It is a farming community with the majority of its countryside land being cattle farms or residential farms.
