1.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
South Africa
–
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
3.
Gauteng
–
Gauteng, which means place of gold, is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africas first all-race elections on 27 April 1994. It was initially named Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging and was renamed Gauteng in December 1994, situated in the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province in South Africa, accounting for only 1. 5% of the land area. Nevertheless, it is highly urbanised, containing the countrys largest city, Johannesburg, its capital, Pretoria. As of 2015, it has a population of nearly 13.2 million, the name Gauteng is derived from the Sotho name, gauta meaning gold with the locative suffix -eng. There was a thriving industry in the province following the 1886 discovery of gold in Johannesburg. In Sesotho, the name Gauteng was used for Johannesburg and surrounding areas long before it was adopted in 1994 as the name of a province. Gauteng, formerly known as Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging, was carved out of the old Transvaal province in 1994, although the terminology PWV, after the discovery of gold in 1886, the region proceeded to become the single largest gold producer in the world and the city of Johannesburg was founded. The older city Pretoria was not subject to the same attention, Pretoria grew at a slower rate and was highly regarded due to its role in the Second Boer War. The Cullinan Diamond which is the largest diamond ever mined was mined near Pretoria in a town called Cullinan in the year 1905. Gauteng has only been documented since the 1800s and as a result. At the Sterkfontein caves, some of the oldest fossils of hominids have been discovered, such as Mrs. Ples, today, the Apartheid Museum stands testament to these struggles in Johannesburg. Gauteng is governed by the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, a 73-person unicameral legislature elected by party-list proportional representation. The most recent election of the legislature was held on 7 May 2014, and the African National Congress won 53. 59% of the vote. The official opposition is the Democratic Alliance, which won 30. 78% of the vote and 23 seats, other parties represented are the Economic Freedom Fighters with eight seats and the Freedom Front Plus and the Inkatha Freedom Party with one seat each. Premier David Makhura of the ANC was elected on 21 May 2014, the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa, which has seats in Pretoria and Johannesburg, is a superior court with general jurisdiction over the province. Johannesburg is also home to the Constitutional Court, South Africas highest court, Gautengs southern border is the Vaal River, which separates it from the Free State. It also borders on North West to the west, Limpopo to the north, Gauteng is the only landlocked province of South Africa without a foreign border
4.
City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality
–
The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality that manages the local governance of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is divided into branches and departments in order to expedite services for the city. Johannesburg is a city, the poor mostly live in the southern suburbs or on the peripheries of the far north. As of 2012, unemployment is near 25% and most young people are out of work, around 20% of the city lives in abject poverty in informal settlements that lack proper roads, electricity, or any other kind of direct municipal service. Another 40% live in housing with insufficient municipal housing. During the apartheid era, Johannesburg was divided into 11 local authorities, seven of which were white, the first post-apartheid City Council was created in 1995. The council adopted the slogan One City, One Taxpayer in order to highlight its primary goal of addressing inequal tax revenue distribution, to this end, revenue from wealthy, traditionally white areas would help pay for services needed in poorer, black areas. The City Council was divided into four regions, each with an autonomous local regional authority that was to be overseen by a central metropolitan council. The four councils or Metropolitan Local Councils were the Northern MLCl, Southern MLC, Eastern MLC and Western MLC, in 1999, Johannesburg appointed a city manager in order to reshape the citys ailing financial situation. The manager, together with the Municipal Council, drew up a blueprint called Igoli 2002 and this was a three-year plan that called upon the government to sell non-core assets, restructure certain utilities, and required that all others become self-sufficient. The plan took the city from near insolvency to a surplus of Rand 153 million. The plan was contested by trade unions, who argued that it would result in job losses. The core of Igoli 2002 was to restructure Metro Gas, Rand Airport, the city bus service, the Johannesburg Zoo, the Civic Theatre, the Fresh Produce Market, and the citys property holdings were turned into corporations with the city as the single shareholder. Each was run as a business, with management hired on performance contracts, in 2010/11 the municipality faced a qualified audit from the Auditor-General following a large number of billing issues, as the result of the flawed implementation of a SAP system. The citys call centre also experienced a crisis at the same time, the municipality covers an area of 1,645 square kilometres, stretching from Orange Farm in the south to Midrand in the north. The 2011 census divided the municipality into the main places. In the election of 3 August 2016 the African National Congress won the largest share of the seats on the council with 121 but did not achieve a majority. On 22 August 2016, minority parties voted with the DA to elect its candidate, Herman Mashaba
5.
Coloureds
–
Coloureds are a multiracial ethnic group originating in colonial South Africa, who possess ancestry from European, African and Asian ethnic groups. Different families and individuals have a variety of different physical features, there were extensive relationships and unions among these diverse peoples in the Western Cape — in which a distinctive Cape Coloured and affiliated Cape Malay culture developed. In other parts of Southern Africa, people classified as Coloured were usually the descendants of individuals from two distinct ethnicities, genetic studies suggest the group has the highest levels of mixed ancestry in the world. Mitochondrial DNA studies have demonstrated that the lines of the Coloured population are descended mostly from Khoisan women. The Coloured community is descended from numerous interracial sexual unions between Western European men and Khoisan women in the Cape Colony from the 17th century onwards. In KwaZulu-Natal, Coloureds possess a diverse heritage including British, Irish, German, Mauritian, Saint Helenians, Indians, Xhosa, zimbabwean Coloureds are descended from Shona or Ndebele mixing with British and Afrikaner settlers. Griqua, on the hand, are descendants of Khoisan. Despite these major differences, their ancestry from more than one naturalised racial group means that they are coloured in the South African context, such people did not necessarily self-identify this way, some preferred to call themselves black or Khoisan or just South African. The Griqua were subjected to an ambiguity of other people within Southern African social order. With territories beyond the VOC’s administration, Kok provided refuge to deserting soldiers, runaway slaves, the imperial and apartheid governments categorized them as Coloureds. In addition, other groups also traditionally viewed them as a separate group. Coloured people are made up of Indonesian, mixed-race, and people from Khoisan ancestry, the Apartheid government thus treated them as one people, despite their differences. Cape Muslims are also classified as coloured and they generally have Indonesian and black ancestry, as many Indonesian slaves had children with African partners. Many Griqua began to self-identify as Coloureds during the apartheid era, for example, Coloureds did not have to carry a dompas, while the Griqua, who were seen as an indigenous African group, did. Coloured people constitute a plurality of the population in the Western Cape, most speak Afrikaans, while about twenty percent of Coloureds speak English as their mother tongue, mostly in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Virtually all Cape Town Coloureds are bilingual, some can comfortably codeswitch between Kaapse taal and suiwer Afrikaans, and South African English. At least one study indicates that Cape Coloureds have ancestries from the following ethnic groups. This genetic admixture appears to be gender-biased, a majority of maternal genetic material is Khoisan
6.
Indian South African
–
Indian South Africans are South Africans of Indian descent. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it the largest Indian city outside India, many Indians in South Africa are descendents of migrants from colonial India during late 19th-century through early 20th-century. At times Indians were subsumed in the broader geographical category Asians, there remains a cultural, religious and racial overlap for Asians and Indian South Africans. During the most intense period of segregation and apartheid, Indian, Asian, Coloured, during ideological apartheid from 1948 to 1994, Indians were called, and often voluntarily accepted, terms that ranged from Asians to Indians. Some citizens believed that terms were improvements on the negatively defined identity of Non-White. Politically conscious and nationalistic Indian South Africans wanted to both their heritage and their local roots. Increasingly they self-identified as African, South African and, when necessary, nonetheless, the spread of democratic elections has sometimes heightened ethnic loyalties. Politicians and groups have looked for means to power in the competitive parliamentary democracy which South Africa has become since 1994. A significant proportion of slaves imported into the Cape were from parts of India including Bangladesh, many slaves had no identity as Indians and were conveniently classified by the Dutch in the Cape as part of Cape Coloured and Cape Malay communities. There is no reference to the names of these Indians and were given Christian names for convenience. This all contributed to the loss of identity similar to the Mozambicans, an early Indian to settle in South Africa was Kalaga Prabhu, a Goud Saraswat Brahmin merchant from Cochin. He was the foremost among the Konkani merchants in Cochin, no further record of this individual and his descendants if any exists. The modern South African Indian community is descended from Indians who arrived in South Africa from 1860 onwards. The first 342 of these came on board the Truro from Madras, the indentured labourers tended to speak Tamil, Telugu and Hindi, and the majority were Hindu with Christians and a few Muslims among them. The Mercury newspaper favoured the importation of labour, although other Natal newspapers were against the idea. It should be noted that although 1860 is dated as the beginning of Indian settlement in Natal, indentured labourers on sugar plantations were frequently mistreated, and lived in unsanitary conditions. Indians also became fishermen, and worked as clerks, in the postal service and these immigrant Indians who became traders were from varying religious backgrounds, namely Hindu and Muslims but largely from Gujarat, later joined by Kokanis, and Urdu speakers from Uttar Pradesh. These Muslims played an important part in the establishment of Islam in the areas where they settled, there was also a significant number of Gujarati Hindus in this group
7.
Asian South Africans
–
They are largely English speaking, although many also retain the languages of their ancestors. There is also a significant group of Chinese South Africans, of whom the majority are recent immigrants of the last two decades. In total the 1.2 million Asians in South Africa represent about two percent of the nations population, traditionally, the group does not include the Cape Malays, who were descended from South East Asians, who were classified as Coloured under apartheid. The term Indian is far more commonly used than Asian in South Africa and they were hired to work in sugar plantations or mines in the Colony of Natal. Traders, known as Passenger Indians also subsequently immigrated, Indian South Africans form the largest grouping of people of Indian descent born outside India. Since 1994 however, there has been a trickle of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. Most Indian South Africans live in KwaZulu-Natal, particularly in the cities of Durban, Pietermaritzburg, the smaller Chinese community was initially descended from migrant workers who came to work in the gold mines around Johannesburg in the late nineteenth century. Some of those workers were repatriated, estimates vary, but the Chinese population is reckoned to have increased from 10,000 in the early 1980s to more than 100,000 in the early 2000s. Chinese immigration caused difficulties for the apartheid regime, in late 2006, the Chinese Association of South Africa filed suit to have Chinese South Africans recognised as having been disadvantaged under apartheid, to benefit from Black Economic Empowerment. Complicating this attempt was the presence of recent immigrant Chinese who had not been disadvantaged by apartheid and they much outnumber native Chinese South Africans. Because Chinese under apartheid had somewhat less rigid restrictions than indigenous blacks, in addition, the status of Taiwanese, Japanese and South Koreans as honorary whites under apartheid complicated the case. Nonetheless, in June 2008, Chinese South Africans were fully recognised as having been disadvantaged and entered the BEE ethnic groups if they arrived before 1994. For separate political reasons, the government had classified Taiwanese, Japanese and South Koreans, as honorary white, a number of people from Pakistan have also immigrated to South Africa following the end of apartheid. They often, but not always, live in the areas as the Indian South Africans. The Cape Malays are Indonesian and Malaysian South Africans who were the largest group of immigrants adapted to the society of South Africa, during the apartheid regime, they were both classified as part of the Coloured racial group and thus considered non-white and treated as such
8.
White South African
–
White South Africans are people from South Africa who are of European descent and who do not regard themselves, or are not regarded as, being part of another racial group. In 2011, 61% were native Afrikaans speakers, 36% were native English speakers, White South Africans are by far the largest European-descended population group in Africa. The history of European settlement in South Africa started in 1652 with the settlement of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck. The colony remained under Dutch rule for two centuries, after which it was annexed by Great Britain around 1806. At that time, South Africa was home to about 26,000 people of European descent, however, beginning in 1818 thousands of British immigrants arrived in the fledgling Cape Colony, looking to join the local workforce or settle directly on the frontier. About a fifth of the Capes original Dutch-speaking white population migrated eastwards during the Great Trek in the 1830s, nevertheless, the population of European origin continued increasing at the Cape as a result of immigration, and by 1865 had reached 181,500 people. Between 1880 and 1910, there was an influx of Eastern Europeans of various nationalities, the first nationwide census in South Africa was held in 1911 and indicated a white population of 1,276,242. By 1936 there were an estimated 2,003,857 white South Africans, South Africas white population increased to over 3,408,000 by 1965, reached 4,050,000 in 1973, and peaked at 5,044,000 in 1990. The number of white South Africans resident in their home country began gradually declining between 1990 and the mid-2000s as a result of increased emigration, whites continue to play a role in the South African economy and across the political spectrum. Whites number approximately 4.5 to 5 million, or nearly 9% of South Africas population and this represents a decline, both numerically and proportionately, since the countrys first multiracial elections in 1994. Just under a million white South Africans are also living as expatriate workers abroad, under the 1950 Population Registration Act, each inhabitant of South Africa was classified into one of several different race groups, of which White was one. Many criteria, both physical and social were used when the decided to classify someone as white or coloured. This was ventral extended to all those considered the children of two White persons, regardless of appearance, the Act was repealed on 17 June 1991. The 1994 Employment Equity legislation favours employment of black South Africans over the white population, however, private enterprise adheres to this legislation voluntarily. This combined with a wave of violent crime has led to vast numbers of Afrikaners, there are 40,000 white farmers in South Africa. Since 1994 close to three thousand farmers have murdered in thousands of farm attacks, with many being brutally tortured and/or raped. Some victims have been burned with smoothing irons or had boiling water poured down their throats, since 1994 there has been significant emigration of white people from South Africa. There are thus currently large Afrikaner and English-speaking South African communities in the UK, between 1995 and 2005, more than one million South Africans have emigrated, citing violent and racially motivated black on white crime as the main reason
9.
First language
–
A first language is a language that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. If there are multiple L1, the designation first language is used for the L1 spoken the best or the one that is the basis for sociolinguistic identity. In some countries, the native language or mother tongue refers to the language of ones ethnic group rather than ones first language. Children brought up speaking more than one language can have more than one native language, by contrast, a second language is any language that one speaks other than ones first language. Native speakers are considered to be an authority on their language because of their natural acquisition process regarding the language. That is achieved by interaction with the language and speakers of the language. Native speakers will not necessarily be knowledgeable about every rule of the language. Sometimes, the mother tongue or mother language is used for the language that a person learned as a child at home. Children growing up in homes can, according to this definition, have more than one mother tongue or native language. It is quite possible that the first language learned is no longer a dominant language. According to Ivan Illich, the mother tongue was first used by Catholic monks to designate a particular language they used, instead of Latin. That is, the mother the Church introduced this term. J. R. R. Tolkien, in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, on 17 November 1999, UNESCO designated 21 February as International Mother Language Day. The first language of a child is part of the personal, social and cultural identity, another impact of the first language is that it brings about the reflection and learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking. It is basically responsible for differentiating the linguistic competence of acting and that has implications on the education of non-native speakers. The topic of native speaker also gives way to discussion about what exactly bilingualism is, one definition is that a person is bilingual by being equally proficient in both languages. A person who grows up speaking English and begins learning Spanish for four years is not necessarily bilingual unless he speaks the two languages with equal fluency, one can have two or more native languages, thus being a native bilingual or indeed multilingual. The order in which languages are learned is not necessarily the order of proficiency
10.
Zulu language
–
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people, with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken language in South Africa. It became one of South Africas 11 official languages in 1994, according to Ethnologue, it is the second most widely spoken of the Bantu languages, after Shona. Like many other Bantu languages, it is written with the Latin alphabet, even in English, the language is often referred to by using its native form, isiZulu. Zulu migrant populations have taken it to adjacent regions, especially Zimbabwe, Xhosa, the predominant language in the Eastern Cape, is often considered mutually intelligible with Zulu. Maho lists four dialects, central KwaZulu-Natal Zulu, northern Transvaal Zulu, eastern coastal Qwabe, the Zulu, like Xhosa and other Nguni people, have lived in South Africa for a long time. The Zulu language possesses several click sounds typical of Southern African languages, the Nguni people have coexisted with other Southern tribes like the San and Khoi. Zulu, like most indigenous Southern African languages, was not a written language until the arrival of missionaries from Europe, the first grammar book of the Zulu language was published in Norway in 1850 by the Norwegian missionary Hans Schreuder. The first written document in Zulu was a Bible translation that appeared in 1883, in 1901, John Dube, a Zulu from Natal, created the Ohlange Institute, the first native educational institution in South Africa. He was also the author of Insila kaShaka, the first novel written in Zulu, another pioneering Zulu writer was Reginald Dhlomo, author of several historical novels of the 19th-century leaders of the Zulu nation, U-Dingane, U-Shaka, U-Mpande, U-Cetshwayo and U-Dinizulu. Other notable contributors to Zulu literature include Benedict Wallet Vilakazi and, more recently, the written form of Zulu was controlled by the Zulu Language Board of KwaZulu-Natal. This board has now disbanded and superseded by the Pan South African Language Board which promotes the use of all eleven official languages of South Africa. English, Dutch and later Afrikaans had been the official languages used by all South African governments before 1994. However, in the Kwazulu bantustan the Zulu language was widely used, all education in the country at the high-school level was in English or Afrikaans. Since the demise of apartheid in 1994, Zulu has been enjoying a marked revival, zulu-language television was introduced by the SABC in the early 1980s and it broadcasts news and many shows in Zulu. Zulu radio is very popular and newspapers such as isoLezwe, Ilanga and UmAfrika in the Zulu language are available, mainly available in Kwazulu-Natal province, in January 2005 the first full-length feature film in Zulu, Yesterday, was nominated for an Oscar. South African matriculation requirements no longer specify which South African language needs to be taken as a second language, and some people have made the switch to learning Zulu. However people taking Zulu at high-school level overwhelmingly take it as a first language, according to statistics, in the 1994 film The Lion King, in the Circle of Life song, the phrases Ingonyama nengw enamabala, Nans ingonyama bakithi Baba and Siyonqoba were used
11.
Tswana language
–
The Tswana language, Setswana, is a language spoken in southern Africa by about five million people. Tswana is a language and lingua franca of Botswana. The two South African provinces with largest number of speakers are Gauteng Province and North West Province, until 1994, South African Tswana people were notionally citizens of Bophuthatswana, one of the bantustans of the apartheid regime. The first European to describe the Tswana language was the German traveller H. Lichtenstein and he mistakenly regarded Tswana as a dialect of the Xhosa language, and the name he used for the language Beetjuana may also have covered the Northern- and Southern Sotho languages. In the following years he published other books of the Bible. Masego was the first to speak the language, the first grammar of the Tswana language was published in 1833 by the missionary James Archbell, although it was modelled on a Xhosa grammar. The first grammar of Tswana which regarded it as a language from Xhosa was published by the French missionary E. Casalis in 1841. He changed his mind later, and in a publication from 1882 he noted that the Northern-, in 1876 the South African intellectual and linguist Solomon Plaatje was born, and he became one of the first writers to extensively write in and about the Tswana language. The vowel inventory of Tswana can be seen below, some dialects have two additional vowels, the close-mid vowels /e/ and /o/. The consonant inventory of Tswana can be seen below, the consonant /d/ is merely an allophone of /l/, when the latter is followed by the vowels /i/ or /u/. Tswana also has three click consonants, but these are used in interjections or ideophones, and tend only to be used by the older generation. The three click consonants are the dental click /ǀ/, orthographically ⟨c⟩, the lateral click /ǁ/, orthographically ⟨x⟩, there are some minor dialectal variations among the consonants between speakers of Tswana. For instance, /χ/ is realised as either /x/ or /h/ by many speakers, /f/ is realised as /h/ in most dialects, and /tɬ/ and /tɬʰ/ are realised as /t/ and /tʰ/ in northern dialects. Stress is fixed in Tswana and thus falls on the penult of a word. The syllable on which the falls is lengthened. Tswana has two tones, high and low, although the latter has a wider distribution in words than the former. Tones are not marked orthographically which may lead to ambiguity, if a syllable bears a high tone, the following two syllables will also get high tones, unless they are at the end of the word. The nine classes and their respective prefixes can be seen below, some nouns may be found in several classes
12.
Sotho language
–
Like all Bantu languages, Sesotho is an agglutinative language, which uses numerous affixes and derivational and inflexional rules to build complete words. Within the Sotho-Tswana group, Sesotho proper is most closely related to Lozi, the Northern Sotho group is geographical, and includes a number of dialects also closely related to Sesotho-Lozi. Tswana is also known as Western Sesotho, Sotho is a tribal suffix, i. e. the name of the Sotho people or Basotho, while Sesotho is the term for the language of the Basotho. Use of Sesotho rather than Sotho language in English has seen increasing use since the 1980s, especially in South African English, the Nguni language Phuthi has been heavily influenced by Sesotho, its speakers have mixed Nguni and Sotho–Tswana ancestry. It seems that it is sometimes treated erroneously as a dialect of Sesotho called Sephuthi, however, Phuthi is mutually unintelligible with standard Sesotho and thus cannot in any sense be termed a dialect of it. These were the first peoples to be called Basotho, before many of their descendants, the situation is even further complicated by various historical factors, such as members of parent clans joining their descendants or various clans calling themselves by the same names. According to the South African National Census of 2011, there were almost four million first language Sesotho speakers recorded in South Africa – approximately eight per cent of the population. Sesotho is also the language spoken by the people of Lesotho. The census fails, to record other South Africans for whom Sesotho is a second or third language, such speakers are found in all major residential areas of Metropolitan Municipalities - such as Johannesburg, and Tshwane - where multilingualism and polylectalism are very high. Sesotho is one of the official languages of South Africa. Sesotho is one of the languages from which the pseudo-language Tsotsitaal is derived. Tsotsitaal is not a language, as it is primarily a unique vocabulary. It is a part of the culture in most Southern Gauteng townships and is the primary language used in Kwaito music. The sound system of Sesotho is unusual in many respects and it has ejective consonants, click consonants, a uvular trill, a relatively large number of affricate consonants, no prenasalised consonants, and a rare form of vowel-height harmony. In total, the language contains some 39 consonantal and 9 vowel phonemes and it also has a large number of complex sound transformations which often change the phones of words due to the influence of other sounds. The most striking properties of Sesotho grammar, and the most important properties which reveal it as a Bantu language, are its noun gender, the grammatical gender system does not encode sex gender, and indeed, Bantu languages in general are not grammatically marked for gender. Another well-known property of the Bantu languages is their agglutinative morphology, additionally, they tend to lack any grammatical case systems, indicating noun roles almost exclusively through word order. Sotho calendar Sotho people South African Translators Association Sesotho Online A gentle introduction to the Sesotho language, weblog on Sesotho Translate. org. za Project translating Free and Open Source Software into South African languages, including Sesotho
13.
South African Standard Time
–
South African Standard Time is the time zone used by all of South Africa, as well as Swaziland and Lesotho. The zone is two hours ahead of UTC and is the same as Central Africa Time, daylight saving time is not observed in either time zone. Thus, most of South Africas population experience true solar noon at approximately 12,00 daily, the western Northern Cape and Western Cape differ however. Everywhere on land west of 22°30′ E effectively experiences year-round daylight saving time because of its location in true UTC+1, sunrise and sunset are thus relatively late in Cape Town compared to the rest of the country. Before 8 February 1892, there was no uniformity of time in South Africa, in 1892, a railway conference was held in Bloemfontein and discussed difficulty of working a railway system, in the absence of a uniform time system. The governments of the Orange Free State, Transvaal and the Cape Colony officially adopted a standard time of Greenwich Mean Time +01,30 which was defined as mean time 22. 5° east of Greenwich. On 1 March 1903 GMT+02,00 was adopted, which became the current UTC+02,00 when UTC replaced GMT for most purposes, prior to 1 March 1903, the Colony of Natal was already using a uniform time supplied by the Natal Observatory. The observatorys local mean time was GMT+1,57, South Africa observed a daylight saving time of GMT+3,00 between 20 September 1942 to 21 March 1943 and 19 September 1943 to 21 March 1944. South African Standard Time is defined as Coordinated Universal Time plus two hours
14.
Post-office box
–
A post-office box or post office box is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office station. In many regions, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, there is no door to door delivery of mail, for example, consequently, renting a PO box has traditionally been the only way to receive mail in such countries. However, some, like Jordan, have introduced mail home delivery, generally, post office boxes are rented from the post office either by individuals or by businesses on a basis ranging from monthly to annual, and the cost of rent varies depending on the box size. Central business district PO boxes are more expensive than rural PO boxes. In the United States, the rate used to be uniform across the country. In the United Kingdom, Royal Mail PO boxes are often more than pigeon-holes in the secure section of a sorting office. In such cases, the renter of the PO box will be issued with a showing the PO box number and delivery office name. For an additional fee, the Royal Mail will deliver received items to the geographical address. Some private companies (e. g. United Parcel Service and commercial mail receiving agencies, the difference with an official PO box is that mail sent there is addressed to a street address, instead of just addressed to PO Box CSX. The quantity of post office boxes in a station varies widely, stations of small areas are often equipped with fewer than 100 boxes, while stations in a central business district area may offer a combined quantity of over 200,000 post office boxes. In many post offices in the U. S. the PO box lobby is separate from the window-service lobby, as a result, some box lobbies are accessible after-hours by customers who are provided a code to a door keypad. In addition, some post offices are located in rented facilities such as shopping malls, as a result, PO boxes can only be accessed while that facility is open. If a parcel does not fit in a PO box, the postmaster will leave a note advising that customer to pick up that parcel from the counter. In some post offices, a key will be left in the PO box that corresponds to a larger, locked box where the patron may pick up his or her package if a signature is not required. Most often, in case, once the key is used to open the larger, locked box, the key cannot be removed again by the patron. Notes will also be left in the PO box in respect of cash on delivery, in 2011, the United States Postal Service began a pilot program called gopost which installed larger boxes to handle package pickup from an unstaffed station. A given box can be used by multiple customers thanks to the integration of a computer which accepts a delivery code, patent 6,690,997, issued February 10,2004 to Michael A. Rivalto. Deutsche Post started a concept called a Packstation in 2001
15.
Indian South Africans
–
Indian South Africans are South Africans of Indian descent. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it the largest Indian city outside India, many Indians in South Africa are descendents of migrants from colonial India during late 19th-century through early 20th-century. At times Indians were subsumed in the broader geographical category Asians, there remains a cultural, religious and racial overlap for Asians and Indian South Africans. During the most intense period of segregation and apartheid, Indian, Asian, Coloured, during ideological apartheid from 1948 to 1994, Indians were called, and often voluntarily accepted, terms that ranged from Asians to Indians. Some citizens believed that terms were improvements on the negatively defined identity of Non-White. Politically conscious and nationalistic Indian South Africans wanted to both their heritage and their local roots. Increasingly they self-identified as African, South African and, when necessary, nonetheless, the spread of democratic elections has sometimes heightened ethnic loyalties. Politicians and groups have looked for means to power in the competitive parliamentary democracy which South Africa has become since 1994. A significant proportion of slaves imported into the Cape were from parts of India including Bangladesh, many slaves had no identity as Indians and were conveniently classified by the Dutch in the Cape as part of Cape Coloured and Cape Malay communities. There is no reference to the names of these Indians and were given Christian names for convenience. This all contributed to the loss of identity similar to the Mozambicans, an early Indian to settle in South Africa was Kalaga Prabhu, a Goud Saraswat Brahmin merchant from Cochin. He was the foremost among the Konkani merchants in Cochin, no further record of this individual and his descendants if any exists. The modern South African Indian community is descended from Indians who arrived in South Africa from 1860 onwards. The first 342 of these came on board the Truro from Madras, the indentured labourers tended to speak Tamil, Telugu and Hindi, and the majority were Hindu with Christians and a few Muslims among them. The Mercury newspaper favoured the importation of labour, although other Natal newspapers were against the idea. It should be noted that although 1860 is dated as the beginning of Indian settlement in Natal, indentured labourers on sugar plantations were frequently mistreated, and lived in unsanitary conditions. Indians also became fishermen, and worked as clerks, in the postal service and these immigrant Indians who became traders were from varying religious backgrounds, namely Hindu and Muslims but largely from Gujarat, later joined by Kokanis, and Urdu speakers from Uttar Pradesh. These Muslims played an important part in the establishment of Islam in the areas where they settled, there was also a significant number of Gujarati Hindus in this group
16.
Township (South Africa)
–
Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities. The term township also has a legal meaning in South Africas system of land title. During the apartheid era, black people were evicted from properties that were in areas designated as white only, separate townships were established for each of the three designated non-white race groups - black people, Coloureds and Indians) - as per the Population Registration Act,1950. Legislation that enabled the government to do this included the Group Areas Act. Townships for non-whites were also called locations or lokasies in Afrikaans, the slang term kasie, a popular short version of lokasie is also used. Townships sometimes have large informal settlements nearby, despite their origins in apartheid South Africa, today the terms township, location and informal settlement are not used pejoratively. However policy makers are, as in the 1950s, once using the term slums in a highly pejorative way. Most South African towns and cities have at least one associated with them. Some old townships have seen rapid development since 1994 with, for instance, wealthy and middle-income areas sprouting in parts of Soweto, Township communities are faced with several social problems. Most often, the residents of townships do not own the land on which their houses are built, in effect, these houses are built illegally. Construction is informal and unregulated by the government and this results in a lack of access to basic services such as sewage, electricity, roads and clean water, which adversely affects residents quality of life. There are three infrastructures within the townships that are in need of repair, which are the sewerage, water, the problems that each of these infrastructures cause for the residents is mainly due to the lack of sanitation, accessibility, and availability. The government does not help out the people that are not actually residents so they are forced to use the resources of the residents, the sewerage system within the townships is very poorly planned and constructed. With the populations continually growing the sewerage was not built for a population so it is not able to deal with it causing an overload on the system. The overload then causes problems such as frequent blockages, surcharges, as well as spilling over, most areas within the townships have a limited number of public toilets that are so over used, abused, and quickly become health hazards for the community. One problem that was not foreseen, when building the houses so close together, having so many houses in one area and very little room in between each house make it very difficult for someone to be able to go in and fix the pipes. Some of the areas on the outside of the townships or near riverbanks, the water is a very challenging situation to deal with. With the mass numbers of residents the pressure of the pumps become very low because the way it is being used so much at the same time, with low pressure the water becomes difficult to get and sparse amounts are already available to each household
17.
Soweto
–
Soweto is a township of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the citys mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships, formerly a separate municipality, it is now incorporated in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Suburbs of Johannesburg. George Harrison is today credited as the man who discovered an outcrop of the Main Reef of gold on the farm Langlaagte in February 1886. Within ten years of the discovery of gold in Johannesburg,100,000 people flocked to this part of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republic in search of riches and they were of all races and all nationalities. In October 1887 the government of the ZAR bought the portion of the farm Braamfontein. There were large quantities of clay, suitable for brickmaking, along the stream, the government decided that more money was to be made from issuing brick makers licences at five shillings per month. The result was that many landless Dutch-speaking burghers of the ZAR settled on the property and they also erected their shacks there. Soon the area was known either Brickfields or Veldschoendorp, soon other working poor, Coloureds, Indians and Africans also settled there. The government, who sought to differentiate the white working class from the black, laid out new suburbs for the Burghers, Coolies, Malays and Kaffirs, in April 1904 there was a bubonic plague scare in the shanty town area of Brickfields. The town council decided to condemn the area and burn it down, beforehand most of the Africans living there were moved far out of town to the farm Klipspruit, south-west of Johannesburg, where the council had erected iron barracks and a few triangular hutments. The rest of them had to build their own shacks, the fire brigade then set the 1600 shacks and shops in Brickfields alight. Thereafter the area was redeveloped as Newtown, Pimville was next to Kliptown, the oldest Black residential district of Johannesburg and first laid out in 1891 on land which formed part of Klipspruit farm. The future Soweto was to be out on Klipspruit and the adjoining farm called Diepkloof. It is important to note that in die Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek and the subsequent Transvaal Colony it was not unlawful for people of colour to own fixed property, consequently, the township of Sophiatown was laid out in 1903 and Blacks were encouraged to buy property there. For the same reasons Alexandra, Gauteng was planned for Black ownership in 1912, the subsequent Natives Land Act of 1913 did not change the situation because it did not apply to land situated within municipal boundaries. In 1923 the Parliament of the Union of South Africa passed the Natives Act, the purpose of the Act was to provide for improved conditions of residence for natives in urban areas, to control their ingress into such areas and to restrict their access to intoxicating liquor. The Act required local authorities to provide accommodation for Natives lawfully employed, pursuant to this Act the Johannesburg town council formed a Municipal Native Affairs Department in 1927. It bought 1300 morgen of land on the farm Klipspruit No.8, the township was named after the chairman of the Native Affairs committee, Mr. Edwin Orlando Leake
18.
Johannesburg
–
Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa and is one of the 50 largest urban areas in the world. It is the capital of Gauteng, which is the wealthiest province in South Africa. While Johannesburg is not one of South Africas three capital cities, it is the seat of the Constitutional Court, the city is located in the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills and is the centre of large-scale gold and diamond trade. In 2011, the population of the city of Johannesburg was 4,434,827, in the same year, the population of Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Area was 7,860,781. Some view the surrounding the city of Johannesburg yet more broadly than the metropolitan area, adding Ekurhuleni, West Rand and Lenasia. The land area of the city is large in comparison with those of other major cities, resulting in a moderate population density of 2. The city was established in 1886 following the discovery of gold on what had been a farm, the city is commonly interpreted as the modern day El Dorado due to the extremely large gold deposit found along the Witwatersrand. The name is attributed to one or all of three men involved in the establishment of the city, in ten years, the population was 100,000 inhabitants. A separate city from the late 1970s until the 1990s, Soweto is now part of Johannesburg, Soweto, although eventually incorporated into Johannesburg, had been separated as a residential area for blacks, who were not permitted to live in Johannesburg proper. Lenasia is predominantly populated by English-speaking South Africans of Indian descent, controversy surrounds the origin of the name. There were quite a number of people with the name Johannes who were involved in the history of the city. Among them are the principal clerk attached to the office of the surveyor-general Johannes Rissik, Christiaan Johannes Joubert, another was Stephanus Johannes Paulus Paul Kruger, president of the South African Republic 1883-1900. Johannes Meyer, the first government official in the area is another possibility, precise records for the choice of name were lost. Rissik and Joubert were members of a delegation sent to England to attain mining rights for the area. Joubert had a park in the city named after him and Rissik Street is today a street where the historically important and dilapidated Post Office, since burnt out. The region surrounding Johannesburg was originally inhabited by San people, the Sotho–Tswana practised farming and extensively mined and smelted metals that were available in the area. The most prominent site within Johannesburg is Melville Koppies, which contains an iron smelting furnace, the main Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered in June 1884 on the farm Vogelstruisfontein by Jan Gerritse Bantjes that triggered the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the start of Johannesburg in 1886. The discovery of gold rapidly attracted people to the area, making necessary a name, Johannes Meyer, the first government official in the area is another possibility
19.
Sandton
–
Sandton is an affluent area situated within the metro of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. It is well known for being the richest square mile in Africa, the name comes from the combination of two of its suburbs, Sandown and Bryanston. In 1969 Sandton was promulgated as a municipality in its own right, the remains of an Iron Age smelter was discovered in Lone Hill, a suburb of northern Sandton. One of the first Voortrekker parties to settle in the area were the Esterhuysen family on the farm Zandfontein, a monument to commemorate them may be found just off Adrienne Street in Sandown where the family cemetery is located. Zandfontein, Driefontein and Rietfontein encumbered what was to become Sandton, the municipal coat of arms of Sandton pays homage to the three farms with three round fountain barrels on its chevron. In the late 19th-century the Wilhelmi family of Hanover, Germany acquired the farm Driefontein No.3 while Rietfontein was owned by the Ehler family, the original Driefontein homestead, now within the confines of the Field & Study Centre, was looted during the Anglo-Boer War. The ruins are visible on the bank of the Klein Jukskei River. The Wilhemi family, upon return from Germany built the new 1906 Driefontein Farmhouse on what is present-day Fifteenth Street, the farmhouse served as the icon and headquarters for the now defunct Sandton Historical Foundation and is listed as a City of Johannesburg Owned Heritage Site. Sandton was established as a municipality in 1969 by the office of the Administrator of the Transvaal. It had formerly not formed part of Johannesburg but was managed, in part by the parent city, initially it was very much a residential area consisting mostly of small holdings with a rural horsey lifestyle attracting many of the upper-middle classes and Johannesburg elites. It was subsequently dubbed the mink and manure belt, Rivonia had previously been known as Edenburg and was changed to make itself distinct from Edenburg, Free State. It was named for the surname Riven, Sandton and its constituencies were traditionally relatively more liberal than surrounds. The construction of Sandton City marked a significant change for the Sandton area and it ushered in rapid commercialisation and industrialisation. Sandton came to symbolise the White Flight movement of Johannesburg and secured itself as Johannesburgs second Central Business District, despite this, Sandton is still unofficially earmarked as a distinct region of the city and operates as a macro-suburb. Urban decay in downtown Johannesburg caused many corporate offices to move from the Johannesburg Central Business District to Sandton in the 1990s and it has become the new financial district of South Africa and Johannesburgs premier business centre. Much of the focus of Johannesburg has shifted from the Central Business District to Sandton. However, three of South Africas four largest banks have kept their offices in downtown Johannesburg, along with Transnet. The other bank, Nedbank, has its headquarters in Sandton, a lot of the new money has moved north to Sandton, including investment banks, financial consultants and the like
20.
Transvaal Province
–
The Province of the Transvaal, commonly referred to as the Transvaal Province was a province of South Africa from 1910 until the end of apartheid in 1994, when a new constitution subdivided it. The name Transvaal refers to the geographical location to the north of the Vaal River. Its capital was Pretoria, which was also the countrys, in 1910, four British colonies united to form the Union of South Africa. The Transvaal Colony, which had formed out of the bulk of the old South African Republic after the Second Boer War. Half a century later, in 1961, the union ceased to be part of the Commonwealth of Nations, the PWV conurbation in the Transvaal, centered on Pretoria and Johannesburg, became South Africas economic powerhouse, a position it still holds today as Gauteng province. In 1994, after the fall of apartheid, the provinces were restructured. The south-central portion became Gauteng, the northern portion became Limpopo, most of the North West came from the southwestern portion of the old Transvaal, and tiny segment of the Transvaal joined KwaZulu-Natal. Except on the south-west, these borders were mostly defined by natural features. Several Bantustans were entirely inside the Transvaal, Venda, KwaNdebele, Gazankulu, KaNgwane, parts of Bophuthatswana were also in the Transvaal, with other parts in Cape Province and Orange Free State. Within the Transvaal lies the Waterberg Massif, a prominent ancient geological feature of the South African landscape, districts of the province and population at the 1991 census
21.
United Democratic Front (South Africa)
–
The United Democratic Front was a major anti-apartheid organisations of the 1980s. The non-racial coalition of about 400 civic, church, students, workers and other organisations was formed in 1983, the UDFs goal was to establish a non-racial, united South Africa in which segregation is abolished and in which society is freed from institutional and systematic racism. Its slogan was UDF Unites, Apartheid Divides, involvement in trade unions, beginning in Durban in 1973, helped create a strong, democratic political culture for black people in South Africa. Mass urban protest could also be traced to the student upsurge in Soweto in 1976,1982 brought the effects of a world economic crisis to South Africa, and the price of gold fell in 1985. The result of these things and other problems caused mass unemployment. The apartheid state wrote a new constitution in 1983 in an attempt to allay criticism against apartheid, the new form of government created a Tricameral Parliament which allowed Coloured and Asian South Africans nominal representation. Black people were not allowed to participate in the government. During a demonstration in Langa in 1984, police shot the participants which led to further insurrection and this led to a black youth uprising by 1985 in South Africa. The plans for a new organisation were introduced by Rev. Allan Boesak at a conference of the Transvaal Anti-South African Indian Council Committee on 23 January 1983. The part of his calling for a united front of churches, civic associations, trade unions, student organizations, and sports bodies was unplanned. He also called for people to have full participation in the government. The UDF then formed regional committees, which established relationships with local organizations, the Natal UDF was launched first, in May, and then the Transvaal region and the Cape Province. Representatives of the formed the Interim National Committee, which also included outside activists. At the end of July, the committee held a meeting where they discussed a national launch date. UDF sent out over 400,000 letters, flyers and brochures to advertise the launch of the group, the UDFs symbols — logo and slogan — were also selected at the meeting. Both the logo and slogan portray the widespread support the UDF hoped to achieve by incorporating a range of South Africans of all races. Some member organisations adapted the UDF Unites, Apartheid Divides slogan, for example, on 20 August 1983 the UDF was launched in the Rocklands community hall, Mitchells Plain, near Cape Town. After a conference of delegates from 575 organisations, a rally was held
22.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
23.
Architecture of Johannesburg
–
Johannesburg is the capital of the Gauteng province, and the financial hub of South Africa. Founded in 1886, the city is located in the Witwatersrand region, the town experienced rapid growth as the gold deposits were exploited, and is now South Africas largest urban center. As a result, the Johannesburg area has a variety of architecture. Hillbrow, for example, contains buildings constructed since the 1950s. Johannesburg features a variety of commercial and residential buildings, so there are also a few buildings such as the KwaDukuza eGoli Hotel. The Johannesburg-Pretoria combined metropolitan area has the densest concentration of skyscrapers on the continent, Carlton Centre is a skyscraper and shopping centre located in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa. At 223 metres, it is the tallest building in Africa and it was the tallest building in the southern hemisphere when originally completed. The Carlton Centre has 50 floors, and is 223m tall, the foundations of the two buildings in the complex are 3. 5m in diameter and extend 20m down to the bedrock, 30m below street level. The building houses offices and shops, and has over 46 per cent of the floor area below ground level. A viewing deck on the 50th floor offers views of Johannesburg, ponte City Apartments is a skyscraper in the Hillbrow neighborhood of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was built in 1975 to a height of 173 m, the 54-story building is cylindrical, with an open center allowing additional light into the apartments. The center space is known as the core and rises above a rock floor. Ponte City was a desirable address for its views over all of Johannesburg. The sign on top of the building is the highest and largest sign in the southern hemisphere and it currently advertises the South African mobile phone company Vodacom. Marble Towers is a skyscraper in the Central Business District of Johannesburg and it was built in 1973 and is 32 storeys tall. The building has a parking garage attached to it. It has the biggest electronic sign in the Southern Hemisphere, measuring 44 metres by 32 metres by 12 metres and it is made out of a mixture of concrete and marble. Its main use is for commercial offices, KwaDukuza eGoli Hotel is a skyscraper in the Central Business District of Johannesburg, South Africa
24.
Suburbs of Johannesburg
–
The suburbs of Johannesburg are officially demarcated areas within the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. The municipal functions for the area, such as municipal policing, Johannesburg, like many other boom towns, grew rapidly and with little planning, and thus the city covers an extremely large area. The South of Johannesburg is associated with poverty as many former townships fall within this area, however, this north/south prejudice is too general as Johannesburg is becoming increasingly less economically segregated. Alexandra township, a low area, borders Sandton and the South boasts affluent areas such as the newly developed Meyersdale Eco Estate. Many people see themselves as being a resident of their suburb first and foremost to being a resident of Johannesburg secondarily. The first major settlements in Johannesburg were loosely planned, as they grew up quickly in order to service the need for labour in the gold mines on the Witwatersrand. However, the population of Johannesburg increased rapidly and the city quickly established formal neighbourhoods, the earliest formal settlement to house people of all races, Kliptown, is located near todays Soweto. The Central Business District grew rapidly in the early 20th century as many formal European style buildings were constructed, during this time period, the city invested in street cars, which mostly served to connect wealthier white suburbs with the CBD. Physical growth, although limited by transportation, continued quickly as immigration to South Africa. This problem was solved in the 1930s when the automobile was introduced in production to South Africa. Automobiles were, for the most part, confined to the wealthy, the South African economy did extremely well at the end of World War II and many new immigrants came to South Africa from Europe. Most poor suburbs were mixed, with blacks and whites living together. This changed with the election of the National Party in the 1948 elections, apartheid formally designated which suburbs each race could live in under the Group Areas Act. Consequently, the city was divided into white and black suburbs, the white suburbs were mostly wealthy and well-developed, and located in the nicest areas in the Johannesburg region. Black South Africans lived in poorly developed townships and suburbs out of view of the white suburbs. Many large freeways were built to link Johannesburg with the rest of South Africa, although this permitted the further expansion of the city along the N1, N3. Public transport construction was abandoned, except for a minor bus system. This system continued until the 1980s, when international sanctions and a security situation led to a large contraction in the economy
25.
History of Johannesburg
–
Johannesburg is a large city in Gauteng Province of South Africa. It was established as a village controlled by a Health Committee in 1886 with the discovery of an outcrop of a gold reef on the farm Langlaagte. The population of the city grew rapidly, becoming a municipality in 1897, in 1928 it became a city making Johannesburg the largest city in South Africa. In 2002 it joined ten other municipalities to form the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, today, it is a centre for learning and entertainment for all of Africa. It is also the capital of Gauteng, the region surrounding Johannesburg was originally inhabited by San people. They were hunter-gatherers who used stone tools, there is evidence that they lived there up to ten centuries ago. By the 13th century, groups of Bantu-speaking people started moving southwards from central Africa, stone-walled ruins of Sotho–Tswana towns and villages are scattered around the parts of the former Transvaal in which Johannesburg is situated. The most prominent site within Johannesburg is Melville Koppies, which contains an iron smelting furnace, after the Great Trek European pastoralists also started settling in the Transvaal. Some of them chose to farm where Johannesburg was to rise later, each burgher was entitled to at least one farm, measuring 1500 morgen or about 3100 acres. Farms to become famous later included Langlaagte, Turffontein, Doornfontein and Braamfontein, George Harrison is today credited as the man who discovered an outcrop of the Main Reef of gold on the farm Langlaagte in February 1886. On 12 May 1886 Harrison and his partner, George Walker, entered into an agreement with the owner of Langlaagte. Two days later Colonel Ignatius Ferreira staked out his camp on Turffontein to serve as a centre for diggers, louwrens Geldenhuys found the Main Reef on Turffontein and Henry Nourse located it on Doornfontein. On 8 September 1886 nine farms, extending from Driefontein in the east to Roodepoort in the west, were declared public diggings Carl von Brandis was appointed as the commissioner for the area. On 8 November 1886 a diggers committee was elected to assist the mining commissioner in the execution of his duties, the earliest mining activities were concentrated along and adjacent to the outcrops of the main reef. Initially the diggers could perform the work themselves, using relatively little equipment, as the pits grew deeper, they needed additional labourers and machinery. Black Africans were recruited to perform the unskilled work, machinery had to be imported from Europe and fuel had to be found to power the machinery. Soon, too, the arrived from the coast, in September 1892 the Cape railway reached the Rand. Two years later the line from Lourenço Marques arrived in the Republic, in 1890 the MacArthur-Forrest cyanidation process successfully overcame the problems of treating the refractory ore from deeper levels
