Area Profiles

Grahamstown - (Afrikaans: Grahamstad) is a city in the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa and is the seat of the Makana municipality. The population of greater Grahamstown, as of 2003, was 124,758. The population of the surrounding areas, including the actual city was 41,799 of which 77.4% were black, 11.8% Coloured, 10% white, and 0.7% Asian. Since 1994, there has been a considerable influx of Black people from the former CiskeiXhosa homeland, which lies just to the east. The city proper has an overwhelming white majority, while the neighboring townships (geographically separate, but tied together politically) have growing Black or Coloured...

Bloemfontein, Dutch for “Fountain of Flowers”, better known as the City of Roses by local inhabitants. Bloemfontein, situated on dry grassland at 29 degrees 06’ S 26 degrees 13’E at an altitude of 1,395 meters above sea level. The city of Bloemfontein is home to 369,568 residents while the Mangaung Local Municipality has a population of 645,455. Bloemfontein is served by the Bloemfontein International Airport. Though historically and predominantly Afrikaner settlement, Bloemfontein was officially founded in 1846 as a fort by British Army major Henry Douglas Warden. In 1910, Bloemfontein became the Judicial capital of the Union of South Africa....

Bloemfontein South, also known as Mangaung situated in the heart of South Africa, Bloemfontein offers its residents a quality of life with which few other cities are able to compete. With its picturesque rural tranquility and vibrant, dynamic central business district, this compact modern city prides itself on being luxuriously steeped in rich tradition and embracing other cultures. All residents are afforded exciting opportunities to enrich their lives, while various development programmes ensure the prospect of a higher standard of living for all. One of the most unusual and unique aspects of Bloemfontein is the Naval Hill Game Reserve located in the heart of the...

Benoni is a city on the East Rand in the South African province of Gauteng. Since 2000, it has been part of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality. The Kopanong Conference Centre in Benoni. Benoni is a diverse city, featuring more horse stables per square kilometre than anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere and over ten schools; in some areas there is a concentration of up to 6000 students within a 5 km radius. Ashton International College was founded here in 1998. Over time gold mining has decreased in importance. Today the city is focused more on industry and services, rather than...

Boksburg is a city with 471,121 inhabitants[1] on the East Rand of Gauteng province of South Africa. Gold was discovered in Boksburg in 1887. It was named after the State Secretary of the South African Republic, W. Eduard Bok. The Main Reef Road linked Boksburg to all the other major mining towns on the Witwatersrand and the Angelo Hotel (1887) was used as a staging post. Boksburg is now part of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, that includes much of the East Rand. The Mining Commissioner Montague White built a large dam which, empty for years, was dubbed White's Folly until a flashflood in 1889 silenced detractors. The 150,000 square metre dam is now...

Brakpan is a gold and uranium mining town with 346,735 inhabitants in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The name Brakpan was first used by the British in the 1880s because of a non-perennial lake that would annually dry to become a "brackish pan". History The name Brakpan comes from a small pan on a farm called Weltevreden, which was filled with very brackish water and was probably referred to as the " brakpan" and it was near this pan that the first settlement started. In 1888, a coal seam was discovered and a coal mine under the name of Brakpan Collieries was started. When a railway line was constructed from Germiston to Springs, Brakpan...

Centurion is strategically situated between Johannesburg and Pretoria and its main access routes link it to every important centre in Gauteng . The main railway line also runs through the heart of Centurion, thereby confirming Centurion as the urban anchor of Gauteng. There is also the Gautrain which is a state of the art rapid rail network in Gauteng. The rail connection comprises of two links, namely a link between Pretoria and Johannesburg and a link between OR Tambo International Airport and Sandton. Apart from three anchor stations on these two links, seven other stations will be linked by approximately 80 kilometres of rail along the route. The three anchor...

The district of Fourways is the fastest-developing commercial and residential hub in the far north of Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. The main access routes to Fourways are off the N1 at William Nicol Road, or alternatively along Witkoppen or the R511. It is located mostly in Region 3. It is roughly as far as one can go in the city before metropolitan Johannesburg dissolves into rolling hills, gamefarms and the capital Pretoria 55 kilometres to the Northeast. Hartebeespoort Dam and the Magaliesburg Mountains lie half an hour to the North West. It bordered by Bryanston to the East and South and Randburg to the West. History Long before the district came to be...

Johannesburg in the 19th century GOLD was discovered in Johannesburg in 1886. The town moved from tent town to wood and iron shacks to bricks and mortar within a decade or two. These stories tell that history, detailing the characters involved, how the city got its name, and the earliest settlers in the region. Joburg's earliest settlers Johannesburg's earliest settlers were not the Boers but rather the descendants of Venda people who settled north of the Soutpansberg around 1 000 years ago, on two hills near a small town called Pontdrift The Struben brothers The first pioneers to actually find gold - but their luck quickly ran out Confidence...

Kempton Park is a city on the East Rand in the Gauteng province, South Africa. Formerly an independent municipality in the Transvaal, Kempton Park no longer has its own municipal government, and has been part of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since 2000. Kempton Park is located north-east of Johannesburg, South Africa's largest city, and south of Pretoria, South Africa's de facto capital city, lying between the two cities. It is situated next to Tembisa, one of the largest townships in South Africa. It was established in 1903 when Karl Wolff sub-divided a portion of his 'Zuurfontein farm' (pronounced Seer-fontayn) into residential stands and...