Today, the Matatiele Municipality is home to quaint towns, fertile farmlands, and rural villages scattered along its sparkling streams snuggled in the shadows of the Drakensberg Mountains.

The Matatiele Municipal district adjoins the World Heritage Site along its western boundary and was included in the Maloti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation and Development Project (MDTP).

The latter was a collaborative initiative between South Africa and the Kingdom of Lesotho to protect the exceptional biodiversity of the Drakensberg and Maloti Mountains through conservation, sustainable resource use, and land-use and development planning.

To the south is the town of Matatiele and to the north is the Drakensberg – the name given to the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau.

The Matatiele nature reserve was created to protect the important grasslands, wetlands and rare species of plants and includes bird-rich commonage and a wide valley known as the Cedarville Flats.

In 2005, the municipality was moved from the KwaZulu-Natal province to the Eastern Cape as part of the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution of South Africa, over the objections of the majority of residents, some of whom in response founded the African Independent Congress.

On 18 August 2006 the Constitutional Court ruled that the part of the 12th Amendment dealing with the transfer of Matatiele from KwaZulu-Natal to the Eastern Cape was invalid due to insufficient consultation with stakeholders.