Cleve is a hub for farmers and suppliers on the Eyre Peninsula and hosts a field day held each second year to offer the newest in farming equipment and stock.

They established a sheep run 43 km from the current day site of Cleve and continued living there until 1869, when Peter and Donald died, leaving James to return to his homeland of Scotland.

The town was officially gazetted on 6 March 1879 in a square grid design meant to imitate the city of Adelaide.

[9] The new town was named after Cleve House, the county seat in Devon, England of the Snow family, cousins of Sir William Jervois who was the Governor of South Australia at the time.

Cleve has maintained its position as a leading producer of both grain and wool since the establishment, with other ventures such as copper mining in the area having little success.

The landscape has been heavily modified since European settlement and now is predominantly farming land, with patches of native scrub in places.

The town of Cleve lies on an ancient bedrock that has undergone high grade metamorphism, with the area characterised by schists, gneisses and granites in a formation known as the Hutchison Group.

Just south of Cleve marks an unconformity with recent Quaternary alluvial and colluvial sediments of the Piedmont Group which were deposited less than 1 million years ago.

Low Open Forest associations of sheoaks (Allocasuarina verticillata) with a varied understorey of Acacia species, native grasses and heath species are also found in the hills, as are the Blue gum woodlands which occur predominantly in the valleys of the Cleve Hills and along creeklines on the adjacent plains.

[14] The native fauna associated with the region consisted of euros and western grey kangaroos which were commonplace until land clearing and the introduction of pest species such as rabbits and foxes.

[18] Cleve has a number of community based facilities and groups established, relating to health, education, sport and culture.

Other annual events include the agricultural show and Christmas pageant The area's regional newspaper, the Eyre Peninsula Tribune, has its headquarters on Main Street in Cleve.

The town is well served in education, with childcare, an area school and TAFE campus (a tiny room on main street).

[19] The school won the South Australian Westpac Landcare Education Award in 2005 for its exemplary integration of good land management practices into its Agriculture curriculum.