South Africa · KwaZulu-Natal
Where to Stay in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal
Pietermaritzburg is a city of KwaZulu-Natal in eastern South Africa, the old Voortrekker and colonial capital of Natal, a town of red-brick Victorian streets in the green Midlands below the Drakensberg.
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Where to stay in Pietermaritzburg
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Where you stay in Pietermaritzburg turns on the old town or the hills. The streets around the city hall keep the museums, the market, and the old churches within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the heritage. The brick fronts line the streets.
Jacarandas shade the avenues. Out toward the Midlands and the ridges, the town gives way to the green farms, the country lodges, and the road to the Drakensberg. A room out of town trades the streets for the rolling hills, the dairy farms, and the cool Midlands air.
The mountains rise far to the west. Stay downtown for the heritage, or out for the Midlands. Downtown Pietermaritzburg sits only a short run back from the Midlands roads.
About Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg is the old capital of Natal.
What is Pietermaritzburg known for?
On the Msunduzi river in the green Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, it was founded by the Voortrekkers and grew into a Victorian colonial town, and it keeps the great red-brick city hall of the empire's day, the streets where a young Gandhi was thrown from a train, the finish of the long Comrades run to Durban, and the rolling farms of the Midlands around. The green hills roll away. Old brick fronts line the streets.
What are the main landmarks in Pietermaritzburg?
The red-brick city hall is the pride of Pietermaritzburg. The great Victorian hall, said to be the largest brick building of the southern half of the world, stands at the heart of the old town, the emblem of the city, downtown. A station marks an old wrong.
The platform where Gandhi was ejected still stands nearby, while the Voortrekker museum, the KwaZulu-Natal Museum, and the Comrades house mark the country around Pietermaritzburg.
What is the history of Pietermaritzburg?
Pietermaritzburg was born of the Great Trek. In eighteen thirty-eight the Voortrekkers laid out a town on the Msunduzi and named it for two of their fallen leaders, Piet Retief and Gert Maritz. The British took it soon after.
When Natal became a colony of the crown, Pietermaritzburg was made its capital, and a Victorian city of red brick and iron rose on the Boer foundations, with a grand city hall, churches, and gardens. A famous injustice happened here. One winter night in eighteen ninety-three a young Indian lawyer named Gandhi was thrown off a train at the station for sitting in a first-class car, and the wrong he suffered set him on the road to fight injustice.
The city kept its old airs. Long a quiet colonial capital of clubs and gardens, Pietermaritzburg later gave its name to the great Comrades run to Durban, and it grew as a seat of law and learning in the Midlands, keeping its brick streets, its museums, and its hills. The jacarandas still bloom in spring.
Pietermaritzburg keeps its old capital in the green Natal Midlands.
Where is Pietermaritzburg?
Pietermaritzburg lies in the center of KwaZulu-Natal, on the Msunduzi river in the hills of the Natal Midlands. The city sits in a green bowl of wooded ridges and farmland, warm and well watered, with the rolling Midlands around it, the high Drakensberg wall rising to the west, and the coast at Durban falling away east. The green hills ring the town.
Mist drifts down the valleys.
What is the climate of Pietermaritzburg?
Up in the KwaZulu-Natal hills, Pietermaritzburg keeps a mild, humid subtropical climate. Warm wet summers and cool dry winters hold in the hills, with afternoon storms in the green summer and clear mild days in winter. The summer air turns heavy.
Winter stays dry and bright.
How do you get to Pietermaritzburg?
Pietermaritzburg lies in the Natal Midlands, on the highway inland from Durban. The main road and rail run up to it from the coast at Durban, and roads climb west to the Midlands and the Drakensberg. Trains once ran daily.
Durban lies east down the hills.
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Updated August 2026