page_title: Orange River
section_title: Orange River Project
hierarchical_section_title: Orange River / Economy / Orange River Project
caption_attribution_description: English: Gariep Dam
context_page_description: The Orange River is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river within the borders of South Africa and the Orange River Basin extends extensively from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the north. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. The river forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Lesotho and between South Africa and Namibia, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa. Except for Upington, it does not pass through any major cities. The Orange River plays an important role in the South African economy by providing water for irrigation and hydroelectric power. The river was named the Orange River in honour of the Dutch ruling family, the House of Orange, by the Dutch explorer Robert Jacob Gordon. Other names include simply the word for river, in Khoekhoegowab orthography written as!Garib, which is rendered in Afrikaans as Gariep River with the intrusion of a velar fricative in place of the alveolar click, Groote River or Senqu River, derived from ǂNū "Black".
context_section_description: The Orange River Project (ORP) was one of the largest and most imaginative projects of its kind in South Africa. It was constructed by Hendrik Verwoerd's government at the height of the apartheid era. The ORP was built to use the unused water of the Orange River — which, without the Vaal River, represents some 14.1% of the total runoff in South Africa — and in the process, to satisfy an increasing demand for water. The main objectives of the project were:
  to stabilise river flow,
  the generation and transmission of hydroelectric power,
  to provide a reliable water supply for users in the Orange River basin, and
  to give a new lease on life to water-deficient areas in the Eastern Cape, such as the Great Fish and Sundays River valleys.
  The Gariep Dam near Colesberg, previously named the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam when built, is the main storage structure within the Orange River. From here, the water is supplied in two directions, westward along the Orange River (via hydroelectric power generators) to the Vanderkloof Dam which was previously named the PK le Roux Dam, and southward through the Orange-Fish Tunnel to the Eastern Cape.
caption: The Gariep Dam on the Orange River is the largest dam in South Africa, and was a key part of the Orange River Project.
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