Johannesburg

Johannesburg is a large, inland metropolis located in the northeast of South Africa. Its size and current economic strength make it one of the leading cities in the global South, while its illustrious past as a world mining capital lends it a place among history's key cities.

Johannesburg is the capital of Gauteng Province, one of the nine politico-administrative regions that were established during South Africa's transition from apartheid in the mid-1990s. Gauteng is the smallest, but economically most significant, province in South Africa. With a total population of 10.5 million (close to one quarter of the national population), it is also the country's most populous province. Consisting of a series of densely connected and expansive urban municipalities, Gauteng Province is best described as a massive conurbation. The municipal district of Johannesburg constitutes the biggest part of that conurbation. Indeed, with a land area of 1,645 square kilometers (just over 635 square miles) and a population estimated in 2007 by South Africa's national statistical agency at 3.9 million, Johannesburg is the largest and most densely populated city in South Africa. In terms of size, Johannesburg ranks well below the mega-cities of Africa such as Lagos in Nigeria and Cairo in Egypt (both with an estimated population of around 15 million). Yet it is one of the main economic centers of sub-Saharan Africa, contributing one tenth of the subcontinent's gross domestic product.

Johannesburg has often been called “the powerhouse of Africa.” This is in reference to its strong industrial foundation and its high manufacturing output, both of which stem from the development of the mining industry in and around the area of present-day Johannesburg. The origins of the city lie in the late 19th-century discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand (literal translation, “White Waters' Ridge”) of South Africa. Until that time, the region now constituting Johannesburg was largely agrarian, settled first by an indigenous San population (colloquially known as Bushmen) and from the early 13th century onward by Bantu-speaking migrants from central Africa. European settlers, in the form of Voortrekkers descended from Dutch colonizers who initially established a maritime outpost at the Cape, arrived during the first part of the 18th century. Seeking independence from the Cape's new imperial powers—Great Britain—and having defeated the native Matabele, the Voortrekkers established the independent Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). This republic encompassed the Witwatersrand and some towns in the far north of South Africa. The discovery of gold on a farm in 1886 in what is present-day Johannesburg sparked a gold rush and the influx of scouts and aspirant miners from as distant as Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Rapid population growth soon transformed the farm into a large settlement. In October 1886, the ZAR proclaimed it as a permanent settlement and it was named Johannesburg. There is some dispute over the choice of the name. A predominant theory is that the settlement was named after Johann Rissik and Christiaan Johannes Joubert, two officials appointed by the ZAR to demarcate a suitable area within the Witwatersrand for mineral prospecting.

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