The Msunduzi Municipality in Kwazulu-Natal serves a population of over half a million people in Pietermaritzburg and surrounding areas. The legacy of apartheid is still felt in the uneven development between the suburbs and city centre, and the poorly developed townships and surrounding rural settlements. While the City serves as the provincial capital, its limited industrial and commercial development does not provide the economic opportunities needed to ensure employment and adequate livelihoods for all.

There is an estimated 35% unemployment in the Municipal area. The Municipal budget of approximately R1,750 per capita per annum is severely strained to maintain existing services and promote development and servicing in poorly-served areas.

Pietermaritzburg, set amidst forested hills and the rolling countryside of the Natal-Midlands, is one of the best-preserved Victorian cities in the world. The city is centrally situated between Durban, the Drakensberg and KwaZulu-Natal's game reserves on the main N3 highway between Johannesburg and Durban; Pietermaritzburg is approximately 80km north of Durban by road.

Laid out by Dutch settlers in 1838, it became the capital of the British Colony of Natal in 1856. In that same year a Christian Mission was established in what was to become Georgetown, and the first landowning Black community in our country. Indian labourers and traders also made their way to the city in the second half of the nineteenth century.

During the twentieth century, despite being labeled "The Last Outpost of the British Empire", the city also became home to vibrant Coloured and Afrikaans-speaking communities alongside its indigenous Zulu population.

Products include: wattle bark extract, furniture, footwear, chocolate and cloth.

Motor vehicles are assembled in the city, and iron ore is mined nearby.

Pietermaritzburg is the seat of the University of Natal (1909), a technical college, Natal Museum, and Tatham Art Gallery.

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