A few hours from Gauteng's hustle, smog and traffic, lies a wilderness where beautiful sights, such as the rare Cape vulture, can be seen. This is the Magaliesberg, a 125 km-long ribbon of mountain that stretches from Pretoria to Rustenburg. The area round Lichtenburg, Ventersdorp and Klerksdorp is flat land with large areas of standing water, which attracts many waterbird species, such as flamingos and fish eagles. The main languages spoken here are Setswana, Sesotho sa Leboa and Afrikaans. The human resource development levels in this province are low.
Poverty is acute in the rural areas.
Those interested in history will be fascinated by the romantic past of the towns in which the discovery of gold and diamonds drew thousands of fortune seekers from all over the world. The central theme of the Mafikeng and Zeerust museums is the history of the area and its Tswana people. Potchefstroom also has an interesting variety of cultural museums. The North-West is one of the important food baskets of South Africa. This is a summer rainfall region with violent thunderstorms.