The Garden Route District Municipality covers an area of 23,331 square kilometres (9,008 sq mi) in the southeastern part of the Western Cape, covering the regions known as the Garden Route and the Little Karoo.

To the north the boundary with the Central Karoo District Municipality runs along the Swartberg mountains.

[11] Note that due to fuzzing applied to statistics, columns may not sum to exactly the indicated total.

Fourteen councillors are directly elected by party-list proportional representation, and twenty-one are appointed by the councils of the local municipalities in the district: six by George, four by Mossel Bay, three each by Oudtshoorn and Knysna, two each by Hessequa and Bitou, and one by Kannaland.

After the election of 3 August 2016 there are twenty-one councillors from the Democratic Alliance (DA), twelve from the African National Congress (ANC), and one each from the Independent Civic Organisation of South Africa (ICOSA) and the African Independent Congress (AIC).