ORANGE RIVER COLONY

ORANGE RIVER COLONY, formerly Orange Free State, was a British colony lying between the Vaal and the Orange Rivers, Griqualand West, and the Drakenberg Mountains; had an area nearly the size of England, with a healthy, temperate climate; undulating plains slope northward and southward, from which rise isolated hills called kopjes. The chief industries were the rearing of sheep, cattle, horses, and ostriches; coal-mining in the N. and diamond-seeking in the SW.; the exports comprised wool, hides, and diamonds. Founded by Dutch Boers from Natal, it was annexed by Britain in 1848, but granted independence in 1854. The capital, Bloemfontein, was connected by a railway with Johannesberg and with the Cape. Having made common cause with the South African Republic in the Boer War, it was annexed by Great Britain in 1900.

The colony ceased to exist in 1910, when it was absorbed into the Union of South Africa as Orange Free State Province.