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Qonce, formerly King William's Town, is a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa along the banks of the Buffalo River. The town is about northwest of the Indian Ocean port of East London. It has a population of around 35,000 inhabitants and forms part of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality.
The town lies above sea level at the foot of the Amathole Mountains in an area known for its agriculture. The town has one of the oldest post offices in the country developed by missionaries led by Charles Brownlee.
King William's Town was founded by Sir Benjamin d’Urban in May 1835 during the Xhosa Wars of that year. The town stands on the site of the kraal of the minor chief Dyani Tyatyu and was named after William IV. It was abandoned in December 1836, but was reoccupied in 1846 and was the capital of British Kaffraria from its creation in 1847 to its incorporation in 1865 with the Cape Colony. Uniquely in the Cape Colony, its local government was styled a borough, rather than a municipality. Many of the colonists in the neighbouring districts are descendants of members of the British German Legion disbanded after the Crimean War and provided with homes in the Cape Colony; hence such names as Berlin, Braunschweig, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Potsdam and Stutterheim given to settlements in this part of the country.
It was declared the provincial capital of the surrounding Queen Adelaide's Province in the 1830s. On 5 May 1877, the Cape Government of Prime Minister John Molteno opened the first railway, connecting the town to East London on the coast and to the Xhosa lands inland and further east.Burman, Jose (1984), Early Railways at the Cape. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, p. 83. With its direct railway communication, the town became an important entrepôt for trade with the Xhosa people throughout Kaffraria.
In 1973, a 108 hectare piece of protected land was established on the outskirts of town called the King William's Town Nature Reserve.
The area's economy depended on cattle and sheep ranching, and the town itself has a large industrial base producing textiles, soap, candles, sweets, cartons and clothing. Its proximity to the new provincial capital city of Bhisho has brought much development to the area since the end of apartheid in 1994.
In September 2020 the Eastern Cape government announced plans to give the town a new name as part of what it described as a programme aimed at transforming the country's geographic landscape to be more representative of its people. The city officially became Qonce on 21 February 2021.
The town is also home to Huberta, one of the farthest-travelling hippopotami in South Africa. It is displayed in the Amathole Museum in the CBD.
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