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Johannesburg

Cities in South AfricaGreater JohannesburgJohannesburgPages with Afrikaans IPAPages with Zulu IPA
Populated places established in 1886Populated places founded by AfrikanersPopulated places in the City of JohannesburgProvincial capitals in South AfricaUse South African English from September 2016Wikipedia pending changes protected pages
Cityscape, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Cityscape, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Johannesburg ( joh-HAN-iss-burg, US also -⁠HAHN-, Afrikaans: [jʊəˈɦanəsbœrχ]; Zulu and Xhosa: eGoli [ɛˈɡɔːli]) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa with 4,803,262 people, and is classified as a megacity; it is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. It is the provincial capital and largest city of Gauteng, which is the wealthiest province in South Africa. Johannesburg is the seat of the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa. Most of the major South African companies and banks have their head offices in Johannesburg. The city is located within the mineral-rich Witwatersrand hills, the epicentre of the international-scale mineral, gold and (specifically) diamond trade. Johannesburg was established in 1886, following the discovery of gold, on what had been a farm. Due to the extremely large gold deposits found along the Witwatersrand, within ten years, the population had grown to over 100,000 inhabitants. A separate city from the late 1970s until 1994, Soweto is now part of the Greater Johannesburg metropolitan area. An acronym for "South-Western Townships", Soweto was organised initially as a collection of nondescript settlements on the outskirts of the city, populated mostly by African labourers working in the gold mining industry. Soweto, although eventually incorporated into Johannesburg, had been explicitly separated as a residential area for blacks only—no whites allowed—who were not permitted to live in other "white-designated" areas of Johannesburg. Another region, Lenasia, is predominantly populated by English-speaking Indo-South Africans (people of Indian and South Asian descent). These areas were, in previous decades, designated as non-white areas, in accordance with the segregationist policies of the time—known as apartheid. It would go on to be one of the host cities of the official tournament of the 2010 FIFA World Cup—and it hosted the final. The metropolis is an alpha global city, as listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. In 2019, the population of the city of Johannesburg was 5 635 127, making it the most populous city in South Africa. In the same year, the population of metro Johannesburg's urban agglomeration was put at 8 000 000. Land area of the municipal city (1,645 km2 or 635 sq mi) is large in comparison with those of other major cities, resulting in a moderate population density of 2,364 per square kilometre (6,120/sq mi).

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Johannesburg (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Johannesburg
Kruis Street, Johannesburg Johannesburg Ward 124

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N -26.204444444444 ° E 28.045555555556 °
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Kruis Street 41
2001 Johannesburg, Johannesburg Ward 124
Gauteng, South Africa
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Cityscape, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Cityscape, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
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Witwatersrand
Witwatersrand

The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a 56-kilometre-long (35 mi), north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which account for the name Witwatersrand, meaning "white water ridge" in Afrikaans. This east-west-running scarp can be traced with only one short gap, from Bedfordview (about 10 km [6 mi] west of O.R. Tambo International Airport) in the east, through Johannesburg and Roodepoort, to Krugersdorp in the west (see the diagram at left below).The scarp forms the northern edge of a 7-to-10-kilometre-wide (4–6 mi) plateau (or ridge) which rises about 200 m (660 ft) above the surrounding plains of the Highveld. A number of picturesque Johannesburg suburbs, including Observatory, Linksfield Ridge and Upper Houghton are located along the scarp, overlooking the rest of northern Johannesburg with views up to the Magaliesburg (although locals refer to segments of the scarp using area-specific names, such as Linksfield Ridge, Parktown Ridge or Observatory Ridge). The entire plateau-like structure is also often called the Witwatersrand. The plateau's elevation above sea-level is between 1,700 and 1,800 metres (5,600–5,900 ft). The Witwatersrand plateau forms a continental divide, with the run-off to the north draining into the Indian Ocean via the Crocodile and Limpopo rivers, while the run-off to the south drains via the Vaal into the Orange River and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean.Because of the extraordinary quantities of gold that have been extracted from the Witwatersrand rocks, the South African currency was named the rand in 1961 upon the declaration of the republic. Witwatersrand and the Rand are names for the conurbation that developed along the range, although the terms are falling into disuse and Witwatersrand was the "W" in PWV (Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging), the initial name of Gauteng province. In this context, it has lent its name to institutions including the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) and the defunct Rand Afrikaans University (RAU, now part of the University of Johannesburg), and to towns and regions such as the East Rand, West Rand and Randburg.