The Province of the Orange Free State ( af, Provinsie Oranje-Vrystaat), commonly referred to as the Orange Free State ( af, Oranje-Vrystaat), Free State ( af, Vrystaat) or by its abbreviation OFS, was one of the four provinces of South Africa from 1910 to 1994. After 27 April 1994 it was dissolved following the first non-racial election in South Africa. It is now called the

Free State Province The Free State, known as Orange Free State until the 28th of June 1995 when its name was changed, is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bloemfontein, which is also South Africa's judicial capital. Its historical origins lie in the Boer ...

. Its predecessor was the

Orange River Colony The Orange River Colony was the British colony created after Britain first occupied (1900) and then annexed (1902) the independent Orange Free State in the Second Boer War. The colony ceased to exist in 1910, when it was absorbed into the Unio ...

which in 1902 had replaced the

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( nl, Oranje Vrijstaat; af, Oranje-Vrystaat;) was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeat ...

, a Boer republic. Its ''outside'' borders were the same as those of the modern

; except for the

bantustans A Bantustan (also known as Bantu homeland, black homeland, black state or simply homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party administration of South Africa set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now ...

("homelands") of

QwaQwa QwaQwa was a bantustan ("homeland") in the central eastern part of South Africa. It encompassed a very small region of in the east of the former South African province of Orange Free State, bordering Lesotho. Its capital was Phuthaditjhaba. It ...

and one part of

Bophuthatswana Bophuthatswana (, meaning "gathering of the Tswana people"), officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana ( tn, Riphaboliki ya Bophuthatswana; af, Republiek van Bophuthatswana), was a Bantustan (also known as "Homeland"; an area set aside for mem ...

, which were contained on land ''inside'' of the provincial Orange Free State borders.

Districts in 1991

Districts of the province and population at the 1991 census. Orange_Free_State_Districts

* Zastron: 14,122 *

Rouxville Rouxville is a small wool and cattle farming town in the Free State province of South Africa and is situated on the N6 national route. The town is at the centre of the wool producing area of the Transgariep. Rouxville is situated near a number o ...

: 11,904 *

Bethulie Bethulie is a small sheep and cattle farming town in the Free State province of South Africa. The name meaning ''chosen by God'' was given by directors of a mission station in 1829 which the town formed around. The mission building is the oldest s ...

: 9,333 * Smithfield: 7,946 *

Wepener Wepener is a town in the Free State, South Africa, located near the border of Lesotho. History The town is named after Louw Wepener, the leader of the Boers in their war with the Basotho chief Moshoeshoe I in 1865. It was founded in 1867 on t ...

: 12,964 *

Dewetsdorp Dewetsdorp is a small town in the Free State province of South Africa, 68 km south-east of Bloemfontein. The town was set up, without approval of the Volksraad, by field-cornet Jacobus de Wet, father of the Second Anglo-Boer War The S ...

: 13,521 * Reddersburg: 6,070 *

Edenburg Edenburg is a town situated about south of Bloemfontein in the Free State province of South Africa. , it had a population of 14,566. Background Edenburg was proclaimed a town in 1863 and received municipal government in 1891. The town is 85 ...

: 6,968 *

Trompsburg Trompsburg is a town in the Free State province of South Africa off the N1 highway, the major road connection between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Background The town is 120 km south-west of Bloemfontein and 56 km north-east of Philip ...

: 5,138 *

Jagersfontein Jagersfontein is a small town in the Free State province of South Africa. Origin The original farm on which the town stands was once the property of a Griqua Jacobus Jagers, hence the name Jagersfontein. He sold the farm to C.F. Visser in 1854. ...

: 6,353 *

Bloemfontein Bloemfontein, ( ; , "fountain of flowers") also known as Bloem, is one of South Africa's three capital cities and the capital of the Free State province. It serves as the country's judicial capital, along with legislative capital Cape To ...

: 300,150 *

Petrusburg Petrusburg is a small mixed farming town in the Free State province of South Africa. It started out as a Dutch Reformed Church serving the farms in 1891. When it became a town, it was originally started on a farm close to "Emmaus", a railway sta ...

: 11,071 *

Brandfort Brandfort, officially renamed Winnie Mandela in 2021, is a small agricultural town in the central Free State province of South Africa, about 60 km northeast of Bloemfontein on the R30 road. The town serves the surrounding farms for supplies ...

: 23,521 *

Botshabelo Botshabelo, meaning "a place of refuge", is a large township set up in 1979 by the then apartheid government. It is located 45 km east of Bloemfontein in the present-day Free State province of South Africa. Botshabelo is now the largest ...

: 177,926 *

Philippolis Philippolis is a town in the Free State province of South Africa. The town is the birthplace of many South African celebrities including the writer and intellectual Sir Laurens van der Post, actress Brümilda van Rensburg and Springboks rugby ...

: 7,056 *

Fauresmith Fauresmith is located 130 km south west of Bloemfontein, South Africa. The town, named after Rev Phillip Faure and Sir Harry Smith, is the second oldest town in the Free State. Fauresmith is the only town in South Africa, and one of only ...

: 8,916 *

Koffiefontein Koffiefontein is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa. The name means ''coffee fountain'' in Afrikaans. History In the 1800s, Koffiefontein was a stopover spot for transport riders traveling between the coast and the di ...

: 10,778 *

Jacobsdal Jacobsdal is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa with various crops under irrigation, such as grapes, potatoes, lucerne, and groundnuts. The town was layout in 1859 by Christoffel Jacobs on his farm Kalkfontein, and t ...

: 9,748 *

Boshof Boshof is a farming town in the west of the Free State province, South Africa. The town is 55 km north-east of Kimberley on the R64 road. Established in March 1856 on the farm Vanwyksvlei, which had been named after a Griqua who sowed his ...

: 32,033 *

Theunissen Theunissen is a small town that has the only wine estate, the Theunissen Wine Farm, in the Free State province of South Africa. It is located about 95 kilometers northeast of Bloemfontein and about 45 kilometers south of Welkom Welkom () ...

: 38,482 *

Bultfontein Bultfontein is a town in the Free State province of South Africa with a total population of about 23,400 people. It is situated in the Tswelopele Local Municipality, about north of Bloemfontein. The town site was laid out in 1873; it had been ...

: 28,556 *

Hoopstad The key town of Hoopstad is situated at the intersection of the R34, R59 & R700 in the Free State Province. This area is considered to be the richest maize-producing district in South Africa. The town is located near the Bloemhof Dam which i ...

: 27,934 *

Wesselsbron Wesselsbron is a small maize farming town 75 kilometres south of Bothaville in Free State province of South Africa. Town 32 km east of Hoopstad and 48 km north-west of Welkom. It was laid out in 1920 and became a municipality in 1936. ...

: 26,494 *

Odendaalsrus Odendaalsrus is the oldest gold mining town in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality in the goldfields of the Free State province in South Africa. History It started out in 1912 as a ramshackle collection of farms and a central church that b ...

: 97,603 *

Welkom Welkom () is the second-largest city in the Free State province of South Africa, located about northeast of Bloemfontein which is the provincial capital. Welkom is also known as Circle City, City Within A Garden, Mvela and Matjhabeng. The ci ...

: 248,186 *

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

: 81,780 *

Hennenman Hennenman is a town in the Free State goldfields in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality of the Free State province of South Africa. The settlement is unusual for the district as being supported by agriculture rather than the mining industr ...

: 25,165 *

Ventersburg Ventersburg is a small town in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality of the Free State province in South Africa, 148 km north of Bloemfontein. History It was established on the farm Kromfontein which was owned by PA Venter who died in 18 ...

: 14,534 *

Ladybrand Ladybrand is a small agricultural town in the Free State province of South Africa, situated 18 km from Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. Ladybrand is one of five towns that forms the Mantsopa Local Municipality. Founded in 1867 following th ...

: 30,532 *

Excelsior Excelsior, a Latin comparative word often translated as "ever upward" or "even higher", may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature and poetry * "Excelsior" (Longfellow), an 1841 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * ''Excelsior'' (Macedo ...

: 18,051 *

Clocolan Clocolan, established in 1906, is a small town in the Free State Province of South Africa. The Basotho called the place Hlohlolwane (Hlohla-o-lwane, "get up and fight"). New inhabitants mispronounced the name and called it Clocolan. History The ...

: 18,542 * Marquard: 17,217 *

Winburg Winburg is a small mixed farming town in the Free State (province), Free State province of South Africa. It is the oldest proclaimed town (1837) in the Orange Free State, South Africa and thus along with Griquastad, one of the oldest settlemen ...

: 17,765 * Senekal: 41,551 *

Ficksburg Ficksburg is a town situated at the foot of the 1,750 meter high Imperani Mountain in Free State province, South Africa. The town was founded by General Johan Fick in 1867 who won the territory in the Basotho Wars. He laid out many erven and ...

: 36,810 *

Fouriesburg Fouriesburg is a small town situated at the junction of the R711 and R26 routes in the eastern Free State, South Africa. It is near the Maluti Mountains and only 10 km from Caledon's Poort border post, which gives access to Lesotho. H ...

: 16,932 *

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...

: 80,921 * Lindley: 37,664 * Reitz: 30,712 *

Harrismith Harrismith is a large town in the Free State province of South Africa. It was named for Sir Harry Smith, a 19th-century British governor and high commissioner of the Cape Colony. It is situated by the Wilge River, alongside the N3 highway, ab ...

: 63,220 *

Vrede Vrede is a town in the Free State province of South Africa that is the agricultural hub of a 100 km² region. Maize, wheat, mutton, wool, beef, dairy products and poultry are farmed in the region. History In 1863 one J. H. Krynauw bought ...

: 37,324 *

Kroonstad Kroonstad (Afrikaans directly translated "Crown City") is the third largest city in the Free State (after Bloemfontein and Welkom) and lies two hours' drive on the N1 from Gauteng. Maokeng is an area within Kroonstad, and is occasionally used ...

: 110,963 *

Bothaville Bothaville is a maize farming town situated near the Vaal River in the Lejweleputswa District Municipality, Lejweleputswa DM of the Free State (South African province), Free State province, South Africa. It is situated 60 km east of the Vaal, ...

: 54,726 * Viljoenskroon: 59,279 * Vredefort: 13,518 * Koppies: 19,723 *

Parys Parys (pronounced ) is a town situated on the banks of the Vaal River in the Free State province of South Africa. The name of the town is the Afrikaans translation of Paris. The name was given by a German surveyor named Schilbach who had partic ...

: 48,678 * Sasolburg: 89,079 *

Heilbron Heilbron is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa which services the cattle, dairy, sorghum, sunflower and maize industries. Raw stock beneficiation occurs in leisure foods, dairy products and stock feeds. It also se ...

: 40,987 * Frankfort: 44,617

Administrators

References

{{coord, 29.1167, S, 26.2167, E, source:wikidata, display=title History of South Africa Former provinces of South Africa States and territories established in 1910 States and territories disestablished in 1994 1910 establishments in South Africa 1994 disestablishments in South Africa

Districts in 1991

Administrators

See also

References