The Northern Cape (Afrikaans: Noord-Kaap [ˈnuərtkɑːp]; Tswana: Kapa Bokone; Xhosa: Mntla-Koloni) is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa.

The Orange River flows through the province, forming the borders with the Free State in the southeast and with Namibia to the northwest.

The provincial motto, Sa ǁa ǃaĩsi 'uĩsi ("We go to a better life"), is in the Nǀu language of the Nǁnǂe (ǂKhomani) people.

Subsequently, South Africa's national motto, ǃKe e ǀxarra ǁke, was derived from the extinct ǀXam language.

Cave sites include Wonderwerk Cave near Kuruman, which has a uniquely long sequence stretching from the turn of the twentieth century at the surface to more than 1 million (and possibly nearly 2 million) years in its basal layer (where stone tools, occurring in very low density, may be Oldowan).

[6][7] Many sites across the province, mostly in open air locales or in sediments alongside rivers or pans, document Earlier, Middle and Later Stone Age habitation.

They occur on hilltops, slopes, rock outcrops and occasionally (as in the case of Driekops Eiland near Kimberley), in a river bed.

[9] Environmental factors have meant that the spread of Iron Age farming westwards (from the 17th century – but dating from the early first millennium AD in the eastern part of South Africa) was constrained mainly to the area east of the Langeberg Mountains, but with evidence of influence as far as the Upington area in the eighteenth century.

From that period the archaeological record also reflects the development of a complex colonial frontier when precolonial social formations were considerably disrupted and there is an increasing 'fabric heavy' imprint of built structures, ash-heaps, and so on.

The Northern Cape is South Africa's largest province, and distances between towns are enormous due to its sparse population.

Kimberlite intrusions punctuate the Karoo rocks, giving the province its most precious natural resource, diamonds.

The north is primarily Kalahari Desert, characterised by parallel red sand dunes and acacia tree dry savanna.

[10] The principal tributary of the Orange is the Vaal River, which flows through part of the Northern Cape from the vicinity of Warrenton.

Many areas experience extreme heat, with the hottest temperatures in South Africa measured along the Namibian border.

Winters are usually frosty and clear, with southern areas sometimes becoming bitterly cold, such as Sutherland, which often receives snow and temperatures occasionally drop below the −10 °C (14 °F) mark.

In the most recent provincial election, held in 2024, the ANC won a plurality of the vote but failed to win an overall majority of seats.

The results of the most recent provincial election in 2024 are as follows:The ANC consistently has been the largest party in the Northern Cape since the end of Apartheid, although its position has been less dominant than it traditionally has been in most other provinces.

In the first democratic provincial elections in 1994, the ANC emerged as the largest party but failed to win an overall majority of seats.

In order to form a majority in the provincial legislature, the ANC reached an agreement with the Democratic Party (DP), which voted for the ANC's Manne Dipico as premier in exchange for the election of the DP's sole MLP, Ethne Papenfus, as speaker of the legislature.

The 2014 election saw the ANC returned to power once again with an increased mandate, while DA once again became the official opposition, after the collapse of COPE.

[17] The Northern Cape is also home to the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), which is located 75 km North-West of Carnarvon.

The Northern Cape also has a substantial agricultural area around the Orange River, including most of South Africa's sultana vineyards.