Template:Wp-Bloemfontein

Watchers
the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Bloemfontein, ( ; , "fountain of flowers") also known as Bloem, is one of South Africa's three capital cities and the capital of the Free State province. It serves as the judicial capital of the country, along with legislative capital Cape Town and administrative capital Pretoria. Bloemfontein is the seventh-largest city in South Africa.

Situated at an elevation of above sea level, the city is home to approximately 520,000[1] residents and forms part of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality which has a population of 747,431. It was one of the host cities for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The city of Bloemfontein hosts the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, the Franklin Game Reserve, , the Maselspoort Resort and the . The city hosts numerous museums, including the National Women's Monument, the Anglo-Boer War Museum, the National Museum, and the Oliewenhuis Art Museum. Bloemfontein also hosts the first digital planetarium in the southern hemisphere, the Naval Hill Planetarium and Boyden Observatory, an astronomical research observatory.

Bloemfontein is popularly and poetically known as "the city of roses", for its abundance of these flowers and the annual rose festival held there. The city's Sesotho name is Mangaung, meaning "place of cheetahs".