The Reserve extends over part of the original Area that in 1894, was declared the Pongola Game Reserve by Paul Kruger the then President of the old Transvaal Republic. The original Reserve has since been re-proclaimed, in part, as the Phongolo Nature Reserve, which is the present Pongola Game Reserve's immediate neighbour. The business is owned and managed by the Landman family, who's ancestors arrived in the Cape in 1744. The Pongola River, broad and perennial, meanders through the centre of the Reserve before entering the man-made 13 276 hectare Lake.