Mpondo, also spelled Pondo, group of Nguni-speaking peoples who have for several centuries occupied the area between the Mtata and Mtamvuna rivers in Eastern province of South Africa. The Mpondo homeland formed one of the largest parts of the former Transkei (until 1994), an independent republic that was established under the South African government’s policy of apartheid but was dissolved and reincorporated (in part) into the new province in 1994.