Ceres is the administrative centre and largest town of the Witzenberg Local Municipality in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.

Ceres is located at the north-eastern entrance to Michell's Pass and was the old route north between Cape Town and Johannesburg, which was later replaced by the N1 highway, which traverses the Breede River Valley to the south.

The town experiences warmer temperatures in summer, due to its inland location with infrequent rainfall, however winters are cool to quite cold and wet, with frequent snowfalls on the surrounding higher-lying ground, rarely falling on the valley floor itself.

South Africa is one of the most stable parts of the world in seismic terms but on 29 September 1969[3] a massive shock shook the district without warning.

The epicentre of the quake was on a major local structure called the Worcester fault, which had clearly been geologically active in the distant past but had not moved in over three hundred years of recorded history.