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Concept
Orania
Summary
Orania (ʊəˈrɑːnia) is a town founded by Afrikaners and an unrecognised micronation in South Africa. It is located along the Orange River in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape province. The town is split in two halves by the R369 road, and is from Cape Town and approximately from Pretoria. Its climate is semi-arid.
The town and its mono-ethnic and monoculturalist ideals have been the subject of much press coverage. The town was founded with the goal of creating a stronghold for the Afrikaner minority group, the Afrikaans language and the Afrikaner culture through the creation of an all-White Afrikaner state known as a Volkstaat. The town is generally described as "Whites-only".
By 2022, the population was 2,500. The town was experiencing rapid growth and the population had climbed by 55% from 2018. In 2023, the population was 2,800.
Living in the town requires application, and is based around being Afrikaner and fluent in Afrikaans. The town's economy is focused around self-sufficiency and based on agriculture, notably of pecan nuts. Afrikaner Calvinism is an important aspect of local culture. While the South African government has stated that it is opposed to the idea of a Whites-only community, it has generally ignored the town. Orania prints its own money-like coupons which can be used to purchase in its stores and maintains the last transitional representative council in South Africa, but receives no national funding.
Two South African presidents have visited the town. Nelson Mandela visited in 1995, and Jacob Zuma in 2010.
The stated goal of Orania's founders was the preservation of Afrikaner cultural heritage, and selfwerksaamheid ("self reliance"). All jobs, from management to manual labour, are done by Afrikaners; Non-Afrikaner people are not allowed to live or work there. The town's monoethnic philosophy rejects the concept of baasskap, where the White minority exploited black labour for economic gain, in favour of a model of strict Afrikaner self-sufficiency.
Official source
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