Steynsrus, also called Matlwangtlwang is a small farming town in the Free State province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

that was founded in 1910 and named after the last president of the

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( ; ) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Em ...

Martinus Theunis Steyn Martinus (or Marthinus) Theunis Steyn (; 2 October 185728 November 1916) was a South African lawyer, politician, and statesman. He was the sixth and last president of the independent Orange Free State from 1896 to 1902. Early life The Stey ...

. It is included under

Moqhaka Local Municipality Moqhaka Municipality (; ) is a local municipality within the Fezile Dabi District Municipality, in the Free State province of South Africa. In 2022, the population was 155,410 with a total area of 7925 km². The seat is Kroonstad. ''Moqhaka' ...

, the tier of municipal government in South Africa, and administered from

Kroonstad Kroonstad ( in Afrikaans) is a town in Free State, South Africa, consisting of the following suburbs: Brentpark, Constantia, Constantia Park, Dawid Malanville, Elandia, Gelukwaarts, Goedgedacht, Heuningspruit, Industria, Jordania, Koek ...

Location

Steynsrus is located on the R76 and R720 road between

and

Senekal Senekal is a town situated on the banks of the Sand River (Free State), Sand River in the eastern part of the Free State (South African province), Free State province of South Africa. It was named after Commandant FP Senekal, who led the encro ...

, roughly 50 km from either; the distance, as with most towns in the Free State, that could be ridden in a day on horseback. A fine sandstone

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, , abbreviated NHK ) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the traditional denomination of the Dutch royal famil ...

, built in 1928, dominates the town and is its most notable architectural feature, sitting at the main axis, Van Reebeck and Haasbroek Streets.

Economy

Apart from government services, agriculture is the main employer in this area and many residents commute every day to work on the surrounding farms.

Demographics

While in 2001 Steynsrus had a population of 1,192, Matlwangtlwang had a population of 6,441. Both Steynsrus and Matlwangtlwang had a majority of females in the population.

Ethnic groups

According to the 2001 census there were 847

white South African White South Africans are South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original colonists, known as Afr ...

s living in the town of Steynsrus (71.1%), almost all of

Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...

background. The town also housed 18 (1.5%) shop owners who were South African citizens of Indian origin. Under apartheid Indians were banned from living in the Free State—even requiring a pass to travel through it—and those in Steynsrus are therefore relatively more recent residents. Steynsrus town also has a large (and growing) black minority, which in 2001 stood at 324 (27.2%). Of Matlwangtlwang's 6,441 inhabitants, 6,408 were classified as black in the 2001 census. 92.5% of them spoke Southern Sotho, with the next largest language being Zulu at 3.6%.

Language

Almost all the people in Matlwangtlwang speak seSotho. In the actual town of Steynsrus the majority (70.8%) of residents speak

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

while most of the black minority speak seSotho. A few whites, as well as most of the Asian population, say English is their mother tongue.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in the Moqhaka Local Municipality Populated places established in 1910