Eastern Transvaal

The Eastern Transvaal was a province that stretched 400km eastwards along the N4 highway from Pretoria to Komatiepoort at the Mozambique border. The area is rich in minerals - notably platinum, gold, and coal.  While most of the land was used for farming, towns grew around the mining operations. The oldest town, Lydenburg (1849) near Nelspruit, is located on the road to the Mozambique port of Lorenzo Marques (Maputo today) - the nearest coastal post to the Transvaal. Middelburg (1864) was halfway to Lydenburg. 

When the area was settled by Europeans during the 19th century there were many Bantu tribes already living in the area. The British took control of the mining interests after the Boer War, but the area remained largely Afrikaans-speaking. Today (2024) the names of some towns have been replaced with Bantu names, and many areas have experienced a decline in their European population.

There are very few existing swimming pools in the province, and these are clustered around the western part of the province next to Johannesburg, as well as the far eastern around Nelspruit. Middelburg still has a functioning municipal pool, located in the middle of the province. A handful of state and private school pools also exist in 2024. 

The provincial governing body, formerly known as the Eastern Transvaal Amateur Swimming Association, is now Eastern Gauteng Aquatics. Swimmers representing EGA won three gold medals at the SA Championships that year. The province has been split in two - the western towns near Johannesburg are now part of Eastern Gauteng Aquatics. The eastern part, from Middelburg to Nelspruit, formed the Mpumalanga Province Swimming Federation.