Queenstown was founded in early 1853 under the direction of Sir George Cathcart, who named the settlement, and then fort, after Queen Victoria.

Work on its railway connection to East London on the coast was begun by the Cape government of John Molteno in 1876, and the line was officially opened on 19 May 1880.

[3] The town war memorial was designed by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1922 with its sculpture by Alice Meredith Williams.

Each year, around the beginning of June, the town holds an art exhibition with the emphasis on paintings and sculpture.

The layout of the town reflects its original objective as a defensive stronghold for the frontier area and has a most unusual design.

Currently, formerly 'white suburbs' (Sandringham, Kingsway, Windsor, Bergsig, Blue rise, Balmoral, Madeira Park and a new suburb of Komani Park) surround the hexagon to the north, east and west, however, one of the city's great townships (and squatter camps) lies to the south.

The Queenstown area is in the Burgersdorp Formation of the Tarkastad subgroup, in the upper Beaufort Group Triassic in age in the karoo supergroup.

Numerous dolerite dykes and ring structures intruded the area creating localities for groundwater exploration.