Orkney is a gold mining town situated at the intersection of the R30 and R502 roads, in the Klerksdorp district, of the North West Province of South Africa.
The town falls under the City of Matlosana Local Municipality in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality of North West Province.
Orkney lies on the Free State provincial border, along the banks of the Vaal River, approximately 180 km from Johannesburg, near the N12 National Route, which runs from Johannesburg to George in the Western Cape Province.
The town lies south-east of Tigane suburb in Hartbeesfontein.
History
The town was named after the Orkney Isles off the north coast of Scotland, the birthplace of Simon Fraser, one of the gold mining pioneers of the 1880s. The town was proclaimed in 1940 on the farm Witkoppen, where Fraser had first started gold mining.
The town was laid out by another Scot by the name of Maconachie (full name unknown). His naming of the streets was interesting: he used the names of poets and authors from the British Isles. This was unusual for a mining town in the heart of “Afrikanerdom”. The rule was broken as Afrikaner nationalism grew dominant in the 1960s, and some of the British literary names were replaced.
The 1960 census recorded a total population of 22,425 residents.
The town was near the epicentre of an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter scale, which struck on 5 August 2014, killing one person.