Orange River Colony, a British crown colony in South Africa, lying between the Vaal and Orange rivers, and surrounded by Cape Colony, the Transvaal Colony, Natal, and Basutoland. This region is a plateau, rising from 3000 to 5000 feet above the sea-level, with very little wood, except alongside the numerous watercourses. Its vast undulating plains of magnificent pasture-land slope down to the Vaal and the Orange, and are dotted over with the isolated hills called 'kopjes.' Area estimated at 48,326 sq. m.; pop. (1890) 207,503—77,716 being whites. Of these again, 51,910 were natives of the Free State, 21,116 were born in Cape Colony, and 2549 in Europe, with 1000 from the Transvaal and 900 from Natal. Nearly 70,000 were members of the Dutch Reformed Church. The occupations are mainly pastoral. Merino sheep, cattle, horses, goats, and ostriches are reared; corn (wheat, maize, Kaffir corn) is grown chiefly in the east. Coal is mined in the north and diamonds in the south-west. The climate is healthy and temperate. Railways connect Bloemfontein (q.v.), the capital, with the Cape (1892) and the Transvaal. The annual trade reaches a total of 3 millions sterling; the chief exports being wool, diamonds, hides, ostrich-feathers, and live animals. When the Dutch Boers left the Cape Colony (1836) and took possession of this country it was inhabited by Bushmen, Bechuanas, and Korannas. The Cape government appointed a resident in the republic in 1845, and three years later it was annexed to the British crown as the Orange River Sovereignty; but in 1854 it was given up to the Boers, who formed themselves into the independent republic of the Orange River Free State. President Sir J. H. Brand (1863–83) cherished the friendliest relations with Britain, and mediated in 1881 between Britain and the Transvaal. On the failure of negotiations between the Transvaal (q.v.) and Britain in 1899, President Steyn, in alliance with the Transvaal, issued an ultimatum to Britain (9th October) which was virtually a declaration of war, and was followed a few days afterwards by a joint invasion of Natal. The Boer republics having been conquered and overrun, on 28th May 1900 the Orange River State was formally annexed by Britain as a crown colony, under the name of the Orange River Colony.
See BOERS, TRANSVAAL; Norris-Newman, With the Boers in the Transvaal and Orange Free State (1882); Anthony Trollope, South Africa (1878); E. de Weber, Quatre Ans aux Pays des Boers (1882); Theal's History of the Boers in Southern Africa (1887); and numerous works on the Transvaal war (1899–1900).