Port Alfred is a small town with a population of just under 26,000 in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated on the eastern seaboard of the country at the mouth of the Kowie River, almost exactly halfway between the larger cities of Port Elizabeth and East London and West of Cannon Rocks.HistoryPort Alfred was established in the early 1820s by British settlers who were moved into the area by Lord Charles Somerset as a buffer between the Cape Colony and the Xhosa people. Originally it was two separate towns (settlers arriving on the west bank in 1820 named their settlement Port Kowie, and those arriving on the east bank named theirs Port Frances).Later, in 1860, when Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred visited, the name was changed in his honour.The portIn 1839, William Cock and George Hodgkinson started to block the natural river mouth to the east and canalise the present opening to the sea. By 1841 South Africa's first man-made harbour was opened after completion of the stone lined channel between the ocean and the Kowie river. This allowed high-masted sailing ships with their heavy cargo to dock at the wharf.TransportPort Alfred is located on the junction of the R67 and R72 roads. The R67 connects Port Alfred with the N2 at Grahamstown to the north, while the R72 joins the N2 near Colchester to the west and follows the coast to East London in the east.
