The three buttresses that dominate the landscape are called the Three Rondavels for their resemblance to the traditional homesteads with thatched roofs you see all over South Africa. The Mpumalanga plateau contains huge coal deposits.

On the eastern side of the escarpment is the lower-lying scrub-brush plain, or a bushveld stretching all the way to Mozambique, and not far beyond that, meets the Indian Ocean. The climate is sunny and dry for most of the year.

The province is characterised by flat and grassy plains plains, gently undulating hills and mountains as well as very high mountains (like the northern Drankensberg mountain range) with lots of dramatic waterfalls.

In the 1880s the massive gold rush that was sweeping the country also happened in Mpumalange and there are several towns, like Pilgrim's Rest, that attest to it's gold mining past. Most of these smaller towns no longer mine gold and their gold rush/early Victorian architecture make a great overnight stay.

Other must-see attractions in the province include Sun City, the Blyde River Canyon and the Bourke's Luck Potholes as well as the Kruger National Park which has it's southern gates in Mpumalanga and reaches all the way to the Zimbabwean border.