Johannesburg is a Ville and a Métropole of South Africa, Capitale of the province of Gauteng, richest of South Africa.
It is the most populated city country and the fourth more populated of Africa, behind Cairo, Lagos and Kinshasa.
The Municipalité of Johannesburg is one of the 40 largest metropolitan regions of the world, and is only the world Ville in Africa. Johannesburg is sometimes regarded wrongly as the capital of South Africa.
Located on the gold bearing layer of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is considered nevertheless as the economic capital of the country where is located the Bourse of South Africa. It is also the site of the South-African constitutional court.
The population of the town of Johannesburg is approximately 710.000 inhabitants (more than 6.200.000 with the agglomeration).
The city is also known to have sheltered the Sommet of the Earth 2002; second Summit of the Earth known as “Summit of Joburg” for associations and ONG which had there a top parallel with that of the States, 10 years after the “Sommet of Rio” of 1992.
Geography and climate
26°08' 38.81" S 28°03' 00.68" EMore big city of the Transvaal, Johannesburg is located since 1994 in the new province of the Gauteng of which it is the capital.
Located at approximately 1650 bills of quantities of altitude, it profits from a rather soft climate the day (approximately 28° with 30° in summer and 10° with 20° in winter) but on the other hand rather cold the evening (about fifteen degrees in summer and being able to go down below zero in winter).
The city is located at about fifty kilometers in the south of Pretoria, the capital of the country.
Suburbs
The suburbs reflect the diversity of Johannesburg. To north, extend the very crested and rich districts represented by the center from the businesses with Sandton. Inter alia one can quote Melrose, Four ways, Rivonia. In south-west, celebrates it township Soweto = SOuth WEst TOwn] is a heritage of the Apartheid…
History
The development of Johannesburg related to is discovered Or (from where its Zulu name: eGoli, the city of gold) on the site in 1886. The city then knows an extremely fast growth, with in particular the opening of a Bourse of values (the Johannesburg Stock Exchange ) as of 1887.Important real investments in the Years 1930 (real Art déco), then in the Années 1970 (Skyscraper) then contributed to the urban development.
Administrative organization
- principal articles: Administration of Johannesburg and Areas of Johannesburg
The municipal demarcation of the town of Johannesburg was redefined in 1995 to include black districts. The first municipal council post-apartheid was created in 1995. He adopted the currency " a city, a contribuable" to mark its objective to treat the unequal distribution of the incomes and the taxes. Incomes of the traditionally white and prosperous districts were to provide for the services of the poorest districts. The city was divided into four districts, each one with a territorial Autonomie and an local authority under control of a metropolitan central council. Moreover, the districts were modified to include the rich districts like Sandton and Randburg, and the Township S poor neighbors like Soweto and Alexandra.
In 1999, Johannesburg named a manager for the city in order to reform its bad financial position. The manager, jointly with the municipal council, worked out a strategic plan of reform called " Igoli 2002". The city passed thus from quasi-insolvency to a surplus of 153 million Rand (USD 23,6 million).
The town of Johannesburg merges today with the municipality created in 2000.
The municipality of Johannesburg is divided today into 11 administrative areas:
Area 1: Diepsloot, Kya Sand
Area 2: Midrand, Ivory Park
Area 3: Bryanston, Douglasdale, Fourways, Randburg, Sandton, Strijdompark, Sunninghill, Woodmead
Area 4: Northcliff, Rosebank, Parktown
Area 5: Roodepoort, Constantia Kloof, Northgate
Area 6: Doornkop, Soweto, Dobsonville, Protea Glen
Area 7: Alexandra, Wynberg, Bruma
Area 8: Inner City
Area 9: Johannesburg South, City Deep, Aeroton, Southgate
Area 10: Meadowlands, Diepkloof
Area 11: Orange Farm, Ennerdale, Lenasia
Formerly, the function of mayor was especially honorary. Its mandate was one year and he was elected among the city council men.
Since 2000, it became really an executive function subjected to the election of the inhabitants of the city. For this year, the mayor of Johannesburg has been Amos Masondo (ANC).
At the time of the municipal elections of March 1st 2006, the ANC again carries it with 62% of the votes (136 seats) against more than one third of the votes to the democratic Alliance (59 seats).
Demography
According to the census of 2001, the population of the municipality of Johannesburg is higher than 3 million inhabitants for a territory of 1 644 km ² representing a density of 1 962 inhabitants /km ²).The blacks account for 73% of the population of the city followed from 16% of white, of 6% 4% and coloured persons (mongrel) the Asian ones (Indians included/understood).
The city counts to 42% inhabitants of less than 24 years and 37% unemployed. Among the latter, 91% are black.
Only 0,7% of the active population work in the mines (against 19% in the service sector and 18% in the financial sector).
The most spoken language is the Nguni (34%) followed Sotho (26%), English (19%) and Afrikaans (8%).
One counts 7% of illiterate compared with 29% of graduates of the only secondary education ( high school ) whereas 14% of the population made academic works.
The population of the city declares mainly Christian (53%) against atheistic 24% of S or agnostics, 14% of various African churches, 3% of Musulman S, 1% of Juif S and Hindou S.
The population of all the metropolitan zone of Johannesburg is of 8 million inhabitants what does of them one of the 35 metropolitan zones most populated in the world.
Economy
Today, the mining activity is not any more the principal sector of the local economy. The rise of the service S, as well as the construction of a international Airport, made of Johannesburg a city of first importance for the African trade and world. The agglomeration of Johannesburg ensures 40 % of GDP of South Africa.The heritage of the period of Apartheid maintained a housing shortage for the blacks, seriously touched by the Chômage. The variations of income and the racial tensions create big problems of insecurity in the downtown area deserted by the white, and given up by the investors. This downtown area currently tries to restructure around a new administrative and cultural district with tourist vocation .
Communications and media
Tourism
Johannesburg is a dangerous city where reign the insecurity since the beginning of the Nineties. Its downtown area which includes/understands a hundred buildings Art déco of the Thirties and Forties hardly any more visit and it is strongly disadvised only going there. Most important of these buildings Art déco are located on Main Street, Commissioner Street (Federal Hotel and Broadcast House) or on Loveday and Commissioner (Union Castle Building). Ten of other buildings art déco could soon be demolished to make place with new administrative complexes. They are the buildings located on Beyers Naudé Square (old DF Malan) and which had sheltered the Rand Board Toilets, Colonial Bank and Volkskas Bank.Carlton Center which offered a single point of view on the city was deserted.
The tourists are mainly satisfied to circulate or reside in the peripheral districts like Sandton, true new heart financial of the city. The district of Randburg also is appreciated with its many villas of the tycoons of the Rand (Randlords).
The museum of the Apartheid and the park with topic of Gold Reef City are the two principal places to visit in Johannesburg apart from Sandton and Randburg. The tourists can also add a visit to Soweto, the Township, where they will be able to visit Mandela House Museum or to discover Hector Petersen Memorial Monument.
The " Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens" is also another pleasant place which can deserve a turning if necessary.
In fact, the tourists who reside at Johannesburg will not have to miss going to Pretoria, with 50 kilometers in the north of the city, nor to visit, in Irene, the house of the Marshal and former Prime Minister Jan Smuts.
Criminality
Johannesburg is one of the least sour cities of Africa, in particular in the center town. The major part of the population there circulating is black and comes from the townships known paupers them-also for their strong rates of criminality.People of middle-class and higher live in houses protected by high fences, provided with barbed wires, electric wires, and even supervised by the private companies of safety Dogwatch. The fear of being made burglarize is very large. It is unthinkable to outside leave its car for the night. Even in the crested districts of Sandton, Rosebank or Melville, it is very rare to see people practicing the jogging or walking by bicycle, considered to be too vulnerable against the body attacks.
In the poor districts like Hillbrow and the surrounding townships (mainly Alexandra), violence is important. The brick houses are not always protected by fences with barbed wires. The sheet steel houses are generally without protection. It is highly disadvised leading the night to it.
Transport
Johannesburg, just like Los Angeles, is a city young and adapted to private automobile transport. It thus misses convenient system of public transport. A significant number of the residents of the city depends on the taxis or the abstract minibuses of the city. on average each hearth has 4 cars.Chemin de iron
The system of urban Railroad of Johannesburg connects central Johannesburg to Soweto, Pretoria and with the majority of the satellite towns the length of Witwatersrand. The railroads transport a big number of workmen each day.However, the infrastructure of railroad was built at the end of the 19th century and covers only the older sectors in the south of the city. In the last half-century Johannesburg grew mainly in north and none the sectors of north, including the district of the businesses, those of Sandton, Midrand, Randburg, and Rosebank, are served by the railroad.
Gautrain
The project of the Provincial government, Gautrain, is conceived to relieve the traffic on the N1 highway between Johannesburg and Pretoria, which records a daily traffic of 160.000 vehicles.The construction of this fast rail link began in October 2006 and will be completed from here 2010, for the football world cup. It will connect Johannesburg to Pretoria and Sandton and the International airport of Johannesburg. It will comprise a certain number of underground subway stations, as well as air stations. It will pass in particular by the Joubert park, by Rosebank, Sandton, Midrand and in Pretoria. It will be the first new railway system built in South Africa since 1977.
Bus and taxis
Johannesburg is served by a fleet of bus exploited by Metrobus, an association of companies of the Town of Johannesburg. It has a park of approximately 550 buses " simple" as well as buses with imperial, furrowing 84 different routes in the city. This total includes 200 modern buses (150 double decker buses and 50 simple), manufactured by Volvo and Marcopolo/Brasa in 2002. The fleet of Metrobus transports approximately 20 million passengers per annum. Metrobus exploits also a certain number of buses open-superiors in the " City Slicker" , using them to make guided visits around the city.Moreover there is a certain number of operators of private buses, though the most concentrated on the interurban routes, or charters of bus for the voyages in group.
There is in Johannesbourg of the taxi-minibuses, the most current manner of transport for the majority of the population. These taxis are often of poor quality and the drivers of poor motorists. However in front of the strong demand, they constitute the principal means of transport for the least favoured.
Highways
The fact that Johannesburg was not built around a navigable river meant that at the beginning of the history of the city, it is by the road that the majority of the carriage of the people and the goods is carried out, inside and outside the city.The peripheral of Johannesburg is composed of three highways which converge on the city, forming a loop 80-kilometers around it: the Eastern N3 deviation, which binds Johannesburg with Durban; the Western N1 deviation, which binds Johannesburg with Pretoria and the Cape; and the deviation N12 Southerner, which binds Johannesburg with Witbank and Kimberley.
The peripheral of Johannesburg is frequently congested. The exchanger of Gillooly, is alleged being the exchange more attended southern hemisphere.
Education
Of international repute, the Université of Witwatersrand (or Witts) established in Johannesburg since 1904 is a pole of considerable higher education, offering medical, scientific and artistic formations attracting students to the regional scales and main road.The lesson is exempted in English and Afrikaans on a purely equal basis, result of a long combat under the apartheid which aimed at delivering an English teaching to the profit of the Afrikaans, exclusively white and mongrel language of tradition.
Primary education and secondaries are organized in twelve years and are finalized by obtaining a certificate of validation of asset similar to the Baccalauréat. The school year goes from February to November, and summer holidays are organized for December-January, summer period. The priority of South-African teaching is centered on the simultaneous training of the languages, of sciences as well as the sport. The port of the uniform is obligatory. The schooling is paying and nonmixed, offering a quality of teaching proportional to the tariffs applied by the schools themselves, and a panel of choice of crested élitistes schools not having anything to envy the Californian schools.
Johannesburg includes/understands also a broad network of colleges and international schools of France, Germany, Portugal, the United States, Australia, Israel and Libya.
Sports equipment
The famous stage of Rugby Ellis Park is in Johannesburg. The final of the third world cup of Rugby was held there in 1995 with the victory of the Springbok S over the All-blacks. The president Nelson Mandela, the first of color at this station in South Africa, thus gave the trophy to the South-African captain François Pienaar. Nelson Mandela which was covered besides with a shirt of the national team for the occasion with number 7 of the captain.
Twinnings
Service road
Johannesburg is connected to all the principal cities of the country by air or by roads.The International airport GOLD Tambo (which had borne the name of Jan Smuts of 1952 to 1995) is the principal main door of the foreign travellers in South Africa. Equipped with an ultramodern air terminal, he saw passing by his terminals 9 million passengers per annum making of him the first airport of Africa. Since the October 27th 2006, the international airport of Johannesburg bears the name of Oliver Tambo. This decision, which makes following a long polemic, was perceived by the opponents as a questioning of the argument used in 1995 by the government to henceforth give only geographical place names to the South-African airports.
The national company South African Airways, having an important fleet of large transport aircrafts, especially has a very wide world network towards Europe, the Far East and Australia. It serves also several American cities Washington and New York. Its subsidiary company South African Airlink serves with other companies low-cost the whole of the South-African cities.
Johannesburg is in the middle of a very complex highway network which connects the capital - Pretoria - to 25 minutes, the second city the Cape as well as the parliamentary capital Bloemfontein by N1. The coastal towns of the Indian Ocean such as Durban, Port Elizabeth or East London are served by N2. In parallel, other safaris, national parks and natural reserves are located at the end of minor roads at fast track.
Other names of Johannesburg
Johannesburg is called Joburg, I burg or Jozi. Its name in language Zoulou is eGoli (city of gold). In French, one says Johannesbourg.
Personalities associated with the city
- Peter Abrahams, novelist South-African of English language (1919-)
- Robyn Orlin the choreographer of Contemporary dance was born there in 1955.
Internal bond
External bond
- the Alliance Fran1caise of Johannesburg
Simple: Johannesburg
| Random links: | Sniper Wolf | Windstruck | List episodes of New York criminal section | Rattatac | Geneveys |