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 3000 to 5000 feet above sea-level, with very little wood, except alongside the numerous watercourses that traverse it. Its vast undulating plains slope down to the Vaal and the Orange, and are dotted over with isolated hills called 'kopjes' - magnificent pasture-land. Area, 50,100 sq. m.; pop. (1880) 133,518; (1904) 395,045 - 143,419 being whites, mainly of the Dutch Reformed Church. Pastoral pursuits predominate - the rearing of merino sheep, cattle, horses, goats, and ostriches. Corn (wheat, maize, Kaffir corn) is grown chiefly in the east. Coal is mined in the north and diamonds in the south-west, towards Kimberley. The climate is healthy and temperate. The administration is carried on by a lieutenant-governor with executive and legislative councils. The revenue in 1904 was £1,139,576, and the expenditure £929,681. Bloemfontein (q.v.), the capital, is connected by railway with both the Cape and Johannesburg. The exports include wool, diamonds, hides, ostrich-feathers, etc. When the Dutch Boers left the Cape Colony (1836) and occupied 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 by Britain; in 1854 it was given up to the Boers, who established a republic (Orange Free State); but in consequence of its joining the Transvaal in the Boer war (1S99-1902), it was finally annexed by Britain as a crown colony. See books named at Cape Colony.