Border is a region of

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...

province in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, comprising roughly the eastern half of the province. Its main centre is

East London East London is the part of London, England, east of the ancient City of London and north of the River Thames as it begins to widen. East London developed as London Docklands, London's docklands and the primary industrial centre. The expansion of ...

. Like the Boland region in

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

, Border does not have defined boundaries. The name of the region relates to the region once constituting the 'border' between the formerly Dutch and later British

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

to the west, and the Xhosa Kingdom to the east, and was the site of a prolonged series of colonial wars from 1779 to 1879. The Border region was governed as the British Kaffraria Colony from 1847 and was annexed into the Cape Colony in 1866. During apartheid, part of the Border region was designated as the

Bantustan A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu peoples, Bantu homeland, a Black people, black homeland, a Khoisan, black state or simply known as a homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party (South Africa), National Party administration of the ...

Ciskei Ciskei ( , meaning ''on this side of Great Kei River,

he river The He River is a tributary of the Xi River in Guangxi and Guangdong provinces in China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it ...

Kei''), officially the Republic of Ciskei (), was a Bantustan for the Xhosa people, located in the southeast of South Africa. It covered an area of , almost entirely surrounded b ...

, to which Xhosa people from the neighbouring

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...

were forcibly relocated. The name has long been applied to sports teams that have represented the region in South African interprovincial competitions. The

Border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

team has competed in interprovincial rugby union since 1891, and the

Border cricket team Border is the team representing the Border region in domestic first-class cricket in South Africa. The team began playing in March 1898. When Cricket South Africa introduced the franchise system in 2004, Border merged with Eastern Province to ...

has competed in interprovincial cricket since 1898. The Border Tennis Association is one of the 14 provincial members of Tennis South Africa.

Buster Farrer William Stephen "Buster" Farrer (8 December 1936 – 31 January 2025) was a South African cricketer who played in six Test cricket, Test matches between 1962 and 1964. He also played tennis and field hockey at international level, and represent ...

represented Border in six sports: cricket, tennis, squash, hockey, golf and bowls.Colin Bryden, ''All-Rounder: The Buster Farrer Story'', Aloe Publishing, Kidd's Beach, 2013, p. 6.

References

Geography of the Eastern Cape {{EasternCape-geo-stub

See also

References