Bloemfontein

Bloemfontein is a city in South Africa. It is the main city of a part of the country called the Free State.

One of the country's most important courts is in Bloemfontein.

Bloemfontein is the capital of the Free State, a province in the middle of South Africa. Universalis explains that the Supreme Court has met there since 1910, which makes Bloemfontein the country's judicial capital: the city of its law courts.

In the 2011 census, 464,591 people lived in the Bloemfontein urban area. Since 2000 the city has been part of Mangaung, a large municipality that also takes in towns about 50 kilometers to the east; 811,431 people were counted there in the 2022 census.

Universalis: capital of the Free State province; at first a British fort and rural town; capital of the Orange Free State from 1854, then seat of the Supreme Court from 1910 and so the judicial capital. Since 2000 it has belonged to Mangaung municipality (6,283 km2, including rural land), which joins the former town of Bloemfontein, the former township of Mangaung and, about 50 km east, Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu.

Statistics South Africa censuses via City Population: Bloemfontein urban area (with Mangaung) 364,348 (2001) and 464,591 (2011); Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality 630,784 (1996), 675,281 (2001), 775,184 (2011) and 811,431 (2 February 2022).

Look how far you can see! Dry grass and bushes are in front. Behind them, the city spreads out under fluffy white clouds.

This photo, from South African Tourism, was taken from high ground on 23 April 2015. Dry grass and low bushes cover the slope in front. Below it are apartment blocks, trees and a round building with a green roof.

Further back stand the taller buildings of the center, two wide, pale towers and two thin chimneys, and a green sports field on the right. The city stretches across the flat land to a low, flat-topped hill on the horizon. South African History Online says the landscape here is mostly dry grassland.

Commons: Flickr photo by South African Tourism, 23 April 2015, CC BY 2.0 (FlickreviewR passed), transferred in 2015 by another user; the photographer's description is only 'Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa'. An English caption added in 2019 by a different user says the view is from Naval Hill (Wikidata: a hill 1.65 km E of the city point).

In the picture: a dry, grassy slope with shrubs in the foreground; mid-rise apartment blocks and a round green-roofed building; the city center's office blocks; two broad pale towers with two chimneys at left of center; a sports field with goal posts at right; a far horizon with a flat-topped hill; scattered cumulus clouds.

Bloemfontein is called the City of Roses. Farmers around it grow lots of grain.

Universalis describes Bloemfontein as a peaceful capital with little industry, in a rural province that is rich in grain farming. It is a city of government offices and a university, and it hopes to become a center for conferences.

South African History Online says the city is known as the 'City of Roses', and that the writer J. R. R. Tolkien was born there. On Wikidata, the University of the Free State, founded in 1904, lies about 4 kilometers west of the city's center point.

Universalis: a very little industrialized capital of a rural province rich in cereal farming; Bloemfontein remains a peaceful city, well placed on the routes between Gauteng and the Cape, which seeks to become a conference center and to draw on its status as an administrative and university city.

SAHO: known as the 'City of Roses', or 'Manguang' [sic], 'the place of cheetahs'; the landscape is mostly dry grassland; the judicial capital and seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal; birthplace of J. R. R. Tolkien. Wikidata: University of the Free State (Q1678733), inception 1904.