Johannesburg
Johannesburg (/dʒoʊˈhænɪsbɜːrɡ/ joh-HAN-iss-burg, US also /-ˈhɑːn-/ -HAHN-, Afrikaans: [jʊəˈɦanəsbœrχ]; Zulu and Xhosa: eGoli [ɛˈɡɔːli]) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold")[12][13] is the most populous city in South Africa with 4,803,262 people,[7] and is classified as a megacity;[14] it is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world.[15] It is the provincial capital and largest city of Gauteng, which is the wealthiest province in South Africa.[16] Johannesburg is the seat of the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa.[17] 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.
This article is about the city in South Africa. For other uses, see Johannesburg (disambiguation).
Johannesburg
South Africa
1886[5]
334.81 km2 (129.27 sq mi)
3,357 km2 (1,296 sq mi)
1,642.6 km2 (634.2 sq mi)
1,753 m (5,751 ft)
957,441
2,900/km2 (7,400/sq mi)
7,860,781[a]
4,803,262
2,900/km2 (7,600/sq mi)
76.4%
12.3%
5.6%
4.9%
0.8%
23.41%
20.10%
9.61%
7.68%
7.28%
18.10%
010 and 011
0.75 High (2012)[10]
US$16 370 (2014)[11]
Johannesburg was established in 1886,[18] following the discovery of gold, on what had been a farm. Due to the extremely large gold deposits found along the Witwatersrand,[19] 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. Johannesburg 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.[9] In the same year, the population of metro Johannesburg's urban agglomeration was put at 8 000 000.[9] 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).
Etymology[edit]
Controversy surrounds the origin of the name. There were quite a number of people with the name "Johannes" who were involved in the early history of the city. Among them is the principal clerk attached to the office of the surveyor-general Hendrik Dercksen, Christiaan Johannes Joubert, who was a member of the Volksraad and was the Republic's chief of mining. Another was Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (better known as Paul Kruger), president of the South African Republic (ZAR) from 1883 to 1900. Johannes Meyer, the first government official in the area is another possibility.[20]
Precise records for the choice of name were lost. Johannes Rissik and Johannes Joubert were members of a delegation sent to England to obtain mining rights for the area. Joubert had a park in the city named after him, and Rissik has his name for one of the main streets in the city where the historically important albeit dilapidated Rissik Street Post Office is located.[21][22] The City Hall is also located on Rissik Street.
Infrastructure[edit]
Transportation[edit]
Johannesburg is a young and sprawling city, with its public transportation built in its infancy, geared towards private motorists, and lacks a convenient public transportation system. The City though has invested a large percentage of its budget toward an effective integrated public transportation system. A significant number of the city's residents are dependent on the city's informal minibus taxis.
