Provincial council (South Africa)

The provincial councils were the legislatures of the four original provinces of South Africa. They were created at the foundation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, and abolished in 1986 when they were replaced by a strengthened executive appointed by the State President. The four provincial councils were the Cape Provincial Council, the Natal Provincial Council, the Transvaal Provincial Council and the Orange Free State Provincial Council.

The Union of South Africa was created in 1910 in terms of the South Africa Act 1909. Four British colonies – Cape Colony, Transvaal Colony, Natal Colony and Orange River Colony – became provinces of the new country, and the colonies' parliaments were abolished and most of their powers transferred to the new Parliament of the Union. The provincial councils were created to legislate on those matters which the South Africa Act allocated to the provinces.

When South Africa became a republic in 1961, the Constitution of 1961 preserved the provincial councils unchanged, except that the powers previously vested in the Governor-General now vested in the State President. In 1973 the law relating to the delimitation of electoral divisions and the dissolution of provincial councils was altered by the Constitution and Elections Amendment Act, 1973, as described below.

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