Bloemfontein, also known as Bloem, is the capital and the largest city of the Free State province in South Africa. It is often, and has been traditionally, referred to as the country's "judicial capital", alongside the legislative capital Cape Town and administrative capital Pretoria, although the highest court in South Africa, the Constitutional Court, has been in Johannesburg since 1994.
Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was a South African intellectual, journalist, linguist, politician, translator and writer. Plaatje was a founding member and first General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), which became the African National Congress (ANC). The Sol Plaatje Local Municipality, which includes the city of Kimberley, is named after him, as is the Sol Plaatje University in that city, which opened its doors in 2014.
Kimberley is the capital and largest city of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is located approximately 110 km east of the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The city has considerable historical significance due to its diamond mining past and the siege during the Second Anglo-Boer war. British businessmen Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato made their fortunes in Kimberley, and Rhodes established the De Beers diamond company in the early days of the mining town.
Hopetown is a town which lies at the edge of the Great Karoo in South Africa's Northern Cape province. It is situated on an arid slope leading down to the Orange River. The first diamond discovered in South Africa, the Eureka Diamond, was found at Hopetown.
Dealesville is a mixed farming town in the Free State province of South Africa and is surrounded by numerous salt pans. There are many natural springs in the vicinity, most notably Florisbad some 35 km from the town.
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 laid out in 1859 by Christoffel Jacobs on his farm Kalkfontein, and its last recorded population was 3,504.
Jagersfontein is a small town in the Free State province of South Africa.
Koffiefontein is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa. The name means coffee fountain in Afrikaans.
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 station on the line between Bloemfontein and Kimberley. The original foundations are still there, but they ran out of water, and had to move to the present location where a strong fountain was available. So much so that the first houses had free running water from the fountain for irrigation. The town was named after Petrus Albertus Venter, whose farm, Diepfontein, provided the original land. It is situated on the N8 National Route between Bloemfontein and Kimberley.
Reddersburg is a small sheep and cattle farming town in the Free State province of South Africa on the N6 National Route 60 kilometres south of Bloemfontein.
Barkly West is a town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, situated on the north bank of the Vaal River west of Kimberley.
Warrenton is an agricultural town of approximately 22,588 people in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, situated 70 kilometres (40 mi) north of Kimberley on the Vaal River.
The R64 is a provincial route in South Africa that connects Kimberley with Bloemfontein via Boshof and Dealesville. It is slightly longer than the newer N8 route via Petrusburg, by about 10 kilometres.
Jacobus Nicolaas Boshof was a South African (Boer) statesman, a late-arriving member of the Voortrekker movement, and the second state president of the Orange Free State, in office from 1855 to 1859.
The siege of Kimberley took place during the Second Boer War at Kimberley, Cape Colony, when Boer forces from the Orange Free State and the Transvaal besieged the diamond mining town. The Boers moved quickly to try to capture the area when war broke out between the British and the two Boer republics in October 1899. The town was ill-prepared, but the defenders organised an energetic and effective improvised defence that was able to prevent it from being taken.
Jagersfontein Mine was an open-pit mine in South Africa, located close to the town of Jagersfontein and about 110 kilometres south-west of Bloemfontein. Since it was first established, two of the ten biggest diamonds ever discovered, the Excelsior and the Reitz, were mined from Jagersfontein. The term "Jagers" has since been coined to denote the distinctive faint bluish tint of the gems from this mine. Among geologists, Jagersfontein is known as a kimberlite pipe, and a prime locality for mantle xenoliths, some of which are believed to have come from depths of 300–500 km (190–310 mi).
Kousop, birth date unknown, killed in a battle at Slypklip, Vaal River, near Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, on 6 July 1858, was the leader of a group of San or Khoe-San who inhabited the area between the Modder, Riet and Vaal Rivers, western Orange Free State, in the mid nineteenth century.
The Cape Government Railways (CGR) was the government-owned railway operator in the Cape Colony from 1874 until the creation of the South African Railways (SAR) in 1910.
The Battle of Boshof was fought during the Second Boer War on 5 April 1900 between British forces and mostly French volunteers of the Boer army.
Boshof ǃUi is an extinct ǃKwi language or dialect of South Africa. It was recorded at the town of Boshof, between Kimberley and the Vaal River, by Maingard some time after 1930, and labeled simply "ǃUi", the word for 'person' in Boshof and related languages. It is closely related to Seroa, but analysis of the recorded data has not been enough to determine the boundary between language and dialect.
