The Cradock division is known as The Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality or District. It is situated in the Chris Hani District in the Eastern Cape Province. It is approximately 240km north of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality. It is one of six municipalities in the district, making up a third of its geographical area. 
The two urban centres of Cradock and Middelburg are fairly similar, with well-developed CBDs and fair infrastructure. A lot still needs to be done in the former previously disadvantaged communities. 
The rural areas of both towns are mostly commercial farms, with small settlements in the rural areas of Fish River Mortimer and Rosmead. The N10 National Road, which is the vital economic link between Port Elizabeth and the north, runs through Cradock and skirts Middelburg.

Cradock was declared a sub-drostdy of the district of Graaff-Reinet on 21 January 1814, and on 12 March 1825 it was transferred to the new district of Somerset. This was reversed on 20 May 1831, and in June 1836 a Resident Magistrate and Civil Commissioner was appointed to Cradock. On 10 February 1837 Cradock was proclaimed as a separate district. Over the next 52 years various portions of its territory were separated to form new divisions at Middelburg in 1858, Tarka in 1874, and Steynsburg in 1889. Its revenues were derived mainly from sheep farming, supplemented at a later stage by ostrich husbandry.

The following census figures are available for the division:

1841 census: 6,300 residents

1865 census: 12,228 residents, of whom 3,195 were literate

1875 census: 12,084 residents, of whom 3,652 were literate

1891 census: 15,049 residents, of whom 4,938 were literate

1904 census: 18,803 residents, of whom 6,759 were literate