Bronkhorstspruit

Bronkhorstspruit is a small farming town 50km east of Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa along the N4 highway towards Witbank. It lies on the border between the Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces.

Cultura Park, a suburb of Bronkhorstspruit, hosts the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere, which houses the South African headquarters of the Humanistic Buddhist order. The latter does a lot of community work, celebrates the Chinese New Year and is open to the public, who can book in for weekend-long retreats.

In 1858, a group of Voortrekkers settled in the Bronkhorstspruit creek, which was originally called Kalkoenkransrivier ('turkey ridge river'). In June 1897, the South African Republic gave its approval for the town, then already named Bronkhorstspruit by locals.

In 1880 it was the scene of the action at Bronkhorstspruit, an important event in the early days of the First Boer War.

There is disagreement about where the town got its name from. Some believe it was named after the farmer JG Bronkhorst, while others say that it was named after the plant, bronkors (Afrikaans for watercress), that grew in the region of the creek.

External links

• Open Street Map
• Bronkhorstspruit Information