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South Africa: Free State

Overview

The Free State is a landlocked province and the heartland of the Afrikaner tribe – descendants of the original Dutch settlers. (The Free State was formerly known as the Orange Free State but, after the ANC landslide win in the 1994 election, the ‘Orange’ was dropped because of its associations with Dutch Calvinism and apartheid.) It covers an area of 129,480km2 (49,992mi2), which is 10.6 per cent of the country’s total.

The Free State consists mainly of a plateau, averaging 1,370m (4,500ft) above sea level, its western third marking the geographical centre of South Africa. The plateau is a rolling prairie, chequered with farmlands and dotted with windmills. Agriculture is important, with seemingly endless fields of maize and sunflowers covering much of the province. The eastern border overlooks the mountain kingdom of Lesotho and contains the Free State’s most interesting landscapes and one of its visitor highlights in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park (another part of the Drakensberg range), with beautiful sandstone mountains. The park is noted for its visual splendours, including some of South Africa’s best ancient rock art, rather than its wildlife.

Bloemfontein

The capital, Bloemfontein (the ‘City of Roses’), which is roughly in the middle of both the province and the country, is South Africa’s judicial capital and the province’s only large town, although its population is only 333,000. It has a reputation as South Africa’s hick capital, but this is undeserved and it’s an attractive blend of British, Mediterranean and classical buildings. It was also the birthplace of J.R.R. Tolkein, although there are few reminders of the fact.

Other Towns

Other important towns in the province include Bethlehem, which is the gateway to the Eastern Highlands; Kroonstad, an agricultural, administrative and educational centre; Odendaalsrus, a gold-mining town; Sasolburg, which has a petrol-from-coal industry; and Welkom, the heart of the goldfields.

Population

The Free State has a population of 2.6 million (6.5 per cent of South Africa’s total)


More pages

Page 1: Overview
Page 2: Economy

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