Orania, originally built for construction workers in 1970 on the impressive Orange River Project, stood empty for years until a group of Afrikaners purchased the town with some surrounding land as a pilot project and starting point for Afrikaner settlement and the establishment of an Afrikaner volkstaat.
Orania offers an example of the 'traditional' Afrikaner way of life and also demonstrates the ingenuity of a marginalized community with advanced irrigation techniques, implemented in close cooperation with pioneers in Israel, the only fully organic vineyards in Southern Africa and a sophisticated dairy farm and the cultivation and export of Pecan nuts.
