Johannesburg

With a population of 1.48 million at the 1996 census (or 5 mill. for the greater metropolitan area), it is one of the largest cities in the world that is neither on the coast nor on a major river or waterway (two other such cities are Mexico City and Phoenix). The demarcation of new municipal boundaries in 1999 saw the city population officially rise to around 3 million, including former satellite towns of Sandton, Randburg, Roodepoort and Soweto.

The metropolitan area poulation for the city is now estimated at 6.2 million (based on projections for 2004 from the 1996 and 2001 census figures), while Thomas Brinkhoff (www.citypopulation.de) puts the urban agglomeration population at 7.75 million. This would make it the fifth-largest metropolitan area if it were in the United States, after New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington-Baltimore. These figures exclude Pretoria and the Vaal Triangle, which together with the Johannesburg conurbation form the heart of Gauteng and could be classified as Africa's second megalopolis after Cairo-Alexandria.

The fact that Johannesburg is not built near a large navigable body of water means that road transport has become essential. The city is largely dependent on massive road infrastructure for moving people around, with numerous multi-lane freeways that speed cars around the metropolitan area.

Johannesburg is located on the Continental Divide of Africa – a drop of rain falling on the crest of Pretoria Avenue in Hillbrow will find itself either flowing east to the Indian Ocean or west to the Atlantic Ocean.

Johannesburg viewed from the International Space Station
Larger Version

Johannesburg was founded after the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, and grew within a decade to a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants. Although the city's own mines have long since been abandoned as ores ran out and new deposits were found elsewhere, it is still known in the Zulu language as eGoli, that is, the "place of gold". The "gold crescent" (roughly 120km long by 25km wide) around which Johannesburg grew is the source of more than half the mined gold in the world today. The mines produced tall "mine dumps" or man made mountains. These are what remains from the ore removed from the mines after the gold was extracted. The earlier of these mine dumps still contain some gold. The mine dumps have been "re-mined" to extract further gold through modern more efficient recovery techniques. A lobby formed to prevent the loss of the last of Johannesburg's last mine dumps as these are part of the city's character.

Although it was a prosperous city throughout the 20th century, in the 1990s Johannesburg was affected by urban blight, as millions of poor, mostly black, people who had been kept out artificially by the policy of Apartheid, moved into the city from surrounding black townships such as Soweto. Crime levels soared and non-payment of rent led to apartment buildings being abandoned by landlords, especially in the high-density areas such as Hillbrow. Many leading corporations and institutions, including the Johannesburg Securities Exchange, moved their headquarters to the northern suburb of Sandton. Reviving the city centre is one of the main aims of the municipal government of Johannesburg.

Johannesburg has an airport called Johannesburg International Airport, previously Jan Smuts International after Field Marshal Jan Smuts, soldier, politician, prime minister and statesman.

It is not known for certain who the "Johannes" (Afrikaans for "John") was after whom the city was named. Several candidates have been put forward over the years.

On March 28, 1994 Inkatha Freedom Party supporters (mainly Zulus) and African National Congress supporters battled in central Johannesburg killing 18.

Twin town

Johannesburg is twinned with Birmingham, England.

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