Vredefort is a small farming town in the
Free State province of
South Africa with
cattle,
peanuts,
sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...
,
sunflowers and
maize being farmed. It is home to 3,000 residents.
The town was established in 1876 on a farm called Visgat, on the
Vredefort impact structure, the largest and oldest visible
bolide impact crater in the world (with a diameter of ). It was this approximately wide bolide that led to the preservation of the
gold-bearing reefs of the Free State some 2.02 billion years ago. The town's name, which translates to "peace
fort" in
Afrikaans and
Dutch, was derived from the peaceful conclusion to a threatened war between the
Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal.
* South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...
and the
Orange Free State. The British built a
concentration camp here during the
Second Boer War to house
Boer women and children.
The Vredefort Dome is currently the largest and one of the oldest known asteroid impact sites in the world. It is South Africa's seventh
World Heritage Site and its status is largely due to the efforts of research scientists from
Wits University.
Information
The Vredefort Dome Homepage
Notable residents
* Alba Bouwer
Albertha Magdalena Bouwer (16 March 1920 – 5 October 2010) was a South African Afrikaans-writing journalist and author. She is best known for her series of children's stories about the experiences of a small girl called Alie growing up in the ...
* T.T. Cloete
Theunis Theodorus Cloete (31 May 1924 – 9 July 2015) was a South African Afrikaans poet, Bible translator, essayist and academic. In the 1970s he was involved in the revision of the ''Afrikaanse Kerkgesange'' and later in the 1993 translation ...
* Hendrik van den Bergh
See also
* Vredefort impact structure
References
External links
Parys on the Vaal
Vaal de Grace Estate
Populated places in the Ngwathe Local Municipality
Second Boer War concentration camps
Populated places established in 1878
{{FreeState-geo-stub
