Britstown is a small farming town situated in the Northern Cape

Northern Cape

The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of an international park shared with Botswana...

 province of South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, in the Pixley ka Seme District Municipality, Emthanjeni Local Municipality

Emthanjeni Local Municipality

Emthanjeni Local Municipality is a local municipality in the Pixley ka Seme District Municipality district of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Emthanjeni is a Xhosa name meaning a "vein", symbolising the importance of an underground water supply system to the area. It is also a...

. The town is named after Hans Brits who settled here after he accompanied David Livingstone

David Livingstone

David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...

 on a venture into the interior. In 1877 a community centre and a church was built on a section of Brits's farm. A private irrigation scheme was started by the Smartt Syndicate in 1885 and liquidated in 1954. The concern built two dams, planted lucerne

Alfalfa

Alfalfa is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop in the US, Canada, Argentina, France, Australia, the Middle East, South Africa, and many other countries. It is known as lucerne in the UK, France, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, and known as...

 and wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

. They grazed karakul

Karakul

See also: Karakul Karakul or Qaraqul is a breed of domestic sheep which originated in Central Asia...

 sheep and Clydesdale

Clydesdale

Clydesdale was formerly one of nineteen local government districts in the Strathclyde region of Scotland.The district was formed by the Local Government Act 1973 from part of the former county of Lanarkshire: namely the burghs of Biggar and Lanark and the First, Second and Third Districts...

 horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s. In 1961, floods destroyed the Smartt Irrigation Board Dam and it was rebuilt by the government in 1964.

Britstown lies in the heart of the Central Karoo

Karoo

The Karoo is a semi-desert region of South Africa. It has two main sub-regions - the Great Karoo in the north and the Little Karoo in the south. The 'High' Karoo is one of the distinct physiographic provinces of the larger South African Platform division.-Great Karoo:The Great Karoo has an area of...

 and is located exactly halfway between Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 (via Three Sisters) and Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

 (via Kimberley

Kimberley, Northern Cape

Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...

) on the N12 national road, and thus is about 700 km from both cities. The N10 national road crosses the N12 500m outside the town. De Aar is the closest big town and lies 50 km East from Britstown on the N12.