Sabie is a small logging town located next to the Sabie River on the mountainous escarpment of the Mpumalanga Highveld. It is centrally located near Lydenburg via the Long Tom Pass, the Panorama Route via Graskop and the Lowveld via Hazyview. The town lies amidst one of the biggest man-made forests (plantations) in the world.

Although Sabie is at heart a logging community it is very tourist friendly and popular with South African travelers. It has a good selection of guesthouses, B&B's and a middle-range hotel. Some way out of town, towards Hazyview, is the excellent Blue Mountain Lodge. Sabie also has a good collection of informal restaurants. Most visitors to town use it as a base to explore the surrounding areas, including a number of waterfalls and hiking trials.

Although the town as a permanent settlement is not much more than 120 years old its history goes back a long way. Black tribes migrated into the northern and eastern parts of South Africa some 2000 years ago, including the region where Sabie is located. There is growing archeological evidence that these tribes had an advanced social structure and technology for the time (Thulamela, the Lydenburg Heads, The Great Zimbabwe Ruins, etc.). The Shangaan people feared the (Sabie) river for its crocodiles and strong currents, hence they named it Ulusaba, meaning "river of fear". From there the name for the town and river in modern times.

The Voortrekkers first arrived in the Sabie area in 1846 and called it "Grootfontijn” (Dutch for "large fountain"). This is because the area not only boasts the Sabie River, but also a host of springs and waterfalls. This is a very important feature in a country that has scarce water resources. Most Voortrekkers made the mistake of trekking beyond the Highveld into the Lowveld thus exposing themselves to Malaria which only occurs in the lower lying areas. At the time the cause of Malaria was still unknown.

Gold was discovered in the region in 1871, when a stray bullet fired by one of the members of Henry Thomas Glynn's shooting party chipped a rock, revealing a rich gold reef. This resulted in the influx of many fortune seekers. Because of the amount of Scots who joined the gold rush a nearby waterfall was christened the Mac Mac Falls. The Glynn family were the first permanent settlers (1880) and thus founders of the town.