"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, which has vast gold deposits. The town experienced rapid growth as the gold deposits were exploited, and is now South Africa's largest urban center. As a result, the Johannesburg area has a wide variety of architecture, from early Art Nouveau to post-modern buildings. Hillbrow, for example, contains many buildings constructed since the 1950s, including the Hillbrow Tower. Johannesburg features a variety of commercial and residential buildings, so there are also a"
"of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 (later to become the town of Johannesburg), coupled with the meager returns obtained at Kaapsche Hoop led to the town going into decline. The town has been ""re-discovered"" in recent time and has now become a popular weekend retreat with its period housing including accommodation establishments. New housing (some not period) has also been established on some of the remaining vacant stands (erven). The town is also within commuting distance of the centre of Nelspruit situated some 30 odd kilometres away. The rock field formations near the town are made up of quartzites"
"to the Transvaal government his discovery of an unprecedented gold reef between Pretoria and Heidelberg. The South African Republic's formal proclamation of this two months later prompted the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the founding of Johannesburg, which within a few years was the largest city in southern Africa, populated almost entirely by uitlanders. The economic landscape of the region was transformed overnight—the South African Republic went from the verge of bankruptcy in 1886 to a fiscal output equal to the Cape Colony's the following year. The British became anxious to link Johannesburg to the Cape and Natal by rail, but"
"of white waters"". Another explanation is that the whiteness comes from the quartzite rock, which has a particular sheen to it after rain. The site was not chosen solely for its streams, however. One of the main reasons the city was founded where it stands today was because of the gold. Indeed, the city once sat near massive amounts of gold, given that at one point the Witwatersrand gold industry produced forty percent of the planet's gold. Johannesburg is situated on the highveld plateau, and has a subtropical highland climate (Köppen ""Cwb""). The city enjoys a sunny climate, with the"
"Witwatersrand Gold Rush The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a key part of the Mineral Revolution. There had always been rumours of a modern-day ""El Dorado"" in the folklore of the native tribes that roamed the plains of the South African highveld and in that of the gold miners who had come from all over the world to seek out their fortunes on the alluvial mines of Barberton and Pilgrim's Rest, in what is now known as the province of Mpumalanga. But it was not"
"structures, resulting in structural damage to buildings and bridges. Although gold had been discovered in various locations in South Africa, such as Barberton and Pilgrim's Rest, as well as at several sites near the Witwatersrand, these were alluvial concentrates in contemporary rivers, or in quartz veins, in the form that gold had always been found elsewhere on earth. When George Harrison, probably accompanied by George Walker, found gold on the farm Langlaagte, west of what would become the city of Johannesburg, in an outcrop of conglomerate rocks, in February 1886, they assumed that this was alluvial gold in an old"
"Jameson Raid of 1895 to 1896, and of the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899. Boer resentment over the large number of foreigners (Uitlanders) in the Witwatersrand led to heavy taxes and the denial of voting rights for the gold miners, and in response the Uitlanders and the British owners of the mines began to pressure the overthrow of the Boer government. Witwatersrand Gold Rush The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a key part of the Mineral Revolution. There had always been rumours"
"his country. However, the whites kept coming, particularly after the discovery in 1886 of gold deposits in the South African Republic (or Transvaal), which prompted the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the founding of Johannesburg. After rumours spread among the Witwatersrand (or Rand) prospectors of even richer tracts, ""a second Rand"", north of the Limpopo, the miners began to trek north to seek concessions from Lobengula that would allow them to search for gold in Matabeleland and Mashonaland. These efforts were mostly in vain. Apart from the Tati Concession, which covered a small strip of land on the border with the"
"Simmer and Jack Simmer and Jack Mines Ltd (until 1924 known as The Simmer & Jack Gold Mining Co. Ltd.) is a South African company which was founded in 1887 by the German August Simmer and Scotsman John Jack, shortly thereafter selling the majority shareholding to Gold Fields of South Africa Ltd. The company was listed until 2013 at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. In February 1886, the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in South Africa led to the founding of the city of Johannesburg shortly thereafter. The farm Elandsfontein was about ten kilometers east and belonged to a farmer,"
"rocks were laid down between 700 and 950 million years before the Vredefort impact. These gold-bearing rocks had furthermore been covered by a thick layer of Ventersdorp lavas and the Transvaal Supergroup of rocks before the meteor struck. What the Vredefort impact achieved, however, was to distort the Witwatersrand basin in such a way that the gold-bearing rocks were brought to the present erosion surface in Johannesburg, on the Witwatersrand, just inside the rim of the original 300 km diameter crater caused by the meteor strike. The discovery of the deposit in 1886 launched the Witwatersrand Gold Rush. Some 22%"
"the Yukon River near what was to become Dawson City in Canada's Yukon Territory but it also helped open up the relatively new US possession of Alaska to exploration and settlement and promoted the discovery of other gold finds. In South Africa, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in the Transvaal was important to that country's history, leading to the founding of Johannesburg and tensions between the Boers and British settlers. South African gold production went from zero in 1886 to 23% of the total world output in 1896. At the time of the South African rush, gold production benefited from the"
"Johannesburg proper and vice versa. East Rand The East Rand is the urban eastern part of the Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation in South Africa. This area became settled by Europeans after a gold-bearing reef was discovered in 1886 and sparked the gold rush that gave rise to the establishment of Johannesburg. The large black townships of the East Rand were the scene of heavy clashes between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party before the end of Apartheid. The region extends from Germiston in the west to Springs in the east, and south"
"describing the region existed long before the establishment of the province. The history of the area that is now Gauteng can be traced back to the early 1800s when settlers originating from the Cape Colony defeated chief Mzilikazi and started establishing villages in the area. 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 and development. Pretoria grew at a slower rate and was highly regarded due to its role in"
"until 1886 that the massive wealth of the Witwatersrand would be uncovered. Scientific studies have pointed to the fact that the ""Golden Arc"" which stretches from Johannesburg to Welkom was once a massive inland lake, and that silt and gold deposits from alluvial gold settled in the area to form the gold-rich deposits that South Africa is famous for. The first discovery of gold in the region is recorded as being in 1852 in the Pardekraal farm by J.H. Davis, an English miner. He sold £600 of gold to the Transvaal Treasury and was subsequently ordered to leave the country."
"1900 when gold was discovered and the town became a mining town. Prospective gold miners constructed a wide range of dwellings using thatched timber, corrugated iron and canvas which were highly flammable. Johannesburg grew rapidly and increased building developments led to many fire outbreaks and the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company led by Barney Barnato donated stands to build the fire station. The foundation stone was laid on 15 October 1910 by Mrs D.W.Sims, mayoress of Johannesburg. She was the sister of Harry Graumann who was the mayor at that time, and the first Jewish mayor of Johannesburg. The first fire"
"and placed them within the British Empire. The Boers were promised eventual limited self-government, which was granted in 1906 and 1907. The Union of South Africa was established in 1910. The country was divided into 17 districts: The discovery of gold during the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in 1886 changed the economic fortunes of the formerly impoverished ZAR. The city of Johannesburg was founded as a gold mining town in the same year. Within ten years it would be the largest city in the entire Southern Africa, surpassing Cape Town. The discovery of gold allowed the construction of a railway network"
"group resurfaces at from the centre, followed by an arc of Ventersdorp lavas, beyond which, at between from the centre, the Witwatersrand rocks re-emerge to form an interrupted arc of outcrops today, of which the Johannesburg group is the most famous, because it was here that gold was discovered in 1886. It is thus possible that if it had not been for the Vredefort impact this gold would never have been discovered. The centre of the Vredefort crater consists of a granite dome (where it is not covered by much younger rocks belonging to the Karoo Supergroup) which is an"
"Afrikaners, the majority of whom were farmers. Traditionally the Cape had been the economic and political heart of South Africa. The discovery of diamonds there, in Kimberley in 1870, had only reinforced this dominance. However, the entire balance of power in South Africa was to change in 1886 when vast gold fields were discovered in the Transvaal, near Witwatersrand. Almost overnight the Transvaal changed from being the most rural, backward, and impoverished state of South Africa to being the provider of 25% of the world's gold. The discovery of diamonds in the Cape had led to a vast inflow of"
"Mining industry of South Africa Mining in South Africa was once the main driving force behind the history and development of Africa's most advanced and richest economy. Large-scale and profitable mining started with the discovery of a diamond on the banks of the Orange River in 1867 by Erasmus Jacobs and the subsequent discovery and exploitation of the Kimberley pipes a few years later. Gold rushes to Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton were precursors to the biggest discovery of all, the Main Reef/Main Reef Leader on Gerhardus Oosthuizen's farm Langlaagte, Portion C, in 1886, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the subsequent"
"century accidentally cut into the blue ground and found gem-quality diamonds in quantity. The economic importance of the time was such that, with a flood of diamonds being found, the miners undercut each other's prices and eventually decreased the diamonds' value down to cost in a short time. Kimberlite Kimberlite is an igneous rock, which sometimes contains diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an diamond called the Star of South Africa in 1869 spawned a diamond rush and the digging of the open-pit mine called the Big Hole. Previously, the"
"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 and encroached on the indigenous San population. Stone-walled ruins of Sotho–Tswana towns and villages are scattered around the parts of the former Transvaal in which Johannesburg is situated. Many of these sites contain the ruins of Sotho–Tswana mines and iron smelting furnaces, suggesting that the area was being exploited for its mineral wealth before the"
"been operating the Kromdraai Gold Mine in the Cradle of Humankind together with his partner Johannes Stephanus Minnaar where they first discovered gold in 1881, and which also offered another kind of discovery - the early ancestors of all mankind. Some report Australian George Harrison as the first to make a claim for gold in the area that became Johannesburg, as he found gold on a farm in July 1886. He did not stay in the area. Gold was earlier discovered some to the east of present-day Johannesburg, in Barberton. Gold prospectors soon discovered the richer gold reefs of the"
"Republic to Lourenço Marques. In 1886 gold was discovered in the South African Republic (the Transvaal), setting off the Witwatersrand Gold Rush. The Cape government and the government of the Orange Free State (OFS) reached an agreement, by which the Cape Government Railways would build and operate a railway line, through the OFS, to the rapidly growing city of Johannesburg. This line reached Bloemfontein (the capital of the OFS) in 1890, and the first trains operated from Cape Town to Johannesburg in 1892. In 1897 the OFS government took over control of its portion of the line. The Cape railway"
"railway line from Johannesburg to Boksburg. The line was opened on March 17, 1890 with the first train being hauled by a 14 Tonner locomotive, became known as the ""Randtram"", even though it was actually a railway in every aspect and not singularly dedicated to tram traffic. This was the first working railway line in the Transvaal. The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand also created a super wealthy class of miners and industrialists known as Randlords. Many Randlords built large estates and mansions on the Parktown Ridge. The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a major contributing factor of the failed"
"seen. Yeoville Yeoville is a suburb of Johannesburg, in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. It is located in Region F (previously Region 8). Yeoville was proclaimed as a suburb in 1890 (four years after the discovery of gold led to the founding of Johannesburg) by Thomas Yeo Sherwell, who came from Yeovil in the United Kingdom. The area was advertised as a 'sanitarium for the rich' in which the air was purer because it was up on a ridge overlooking the dirty, smoke-filled mining town that had sprung from nothing out of the (then) Transvaal bushveld. However, the rich"
"aberration, forged ahead with their desire to federate the Southern African colonies and republics. They saw this as the best way to come to terms with the fact of a white Afrikaner majority, as well as to promote their larger strategic interests in the area. In 1879, Zululand came under British control. Then in 1886, an Australian prospector discovered gold in the Witwatersrand, accelerating the federation process and dealing the Boers yet another blow. Johannesburg's population exploded to about 100,000 by the mid-1890s, and the ZAR suddenly found itself hosting thousands of ""uitlanders"", both black and white, with the Boers"
"was laid out in 1887 to serve the surrounding gold mines, and named after the State Secretary of the South African Republic, Eduard Bok. The Main Reef Road linked Boksburg to all the other major mining towns on the Witwatersrand and the Angelo Hotel was used as a production post. A railway was built by the Netherlands-South African Railway Company (NZASM) to link Boksburg to Johannesburg in 1890. The first coal mine was called Gauf's Mine after the Manager Mr J.L. Gauf. Others were the Good Hope, Ferndale and many more. There now arose a pressing need for a more"
"as the rich mineral wealth of South Africa became evident. In 1867, diamonds were discovered in the Kimberley and in 1886 gold was discovered in Johannesburg. In 1889, the British South Africa Company was given a Royal Charter to further seek out and exploit areas across Southern Africa where mining could be profitable. Meanwhile, some more simple property rules, such as streamlined land-registration system had been implemented under John Cradock, 1st Baron Howden, and in the early 20th-century registration practices were codified by the Deeds Registries Act. In 1910, the Union of South Africa Act united the post Boer War"
"Township. By 1896, Johannesburg was established as a city of over 100,000 inhabitants, one of the fastest growth cities ever. Mines near Johannesburg are among the deepest in the world, with some as deep as 4000m. Like many late 19th-century mining towns, Johannesburg was a rough and disorganised place, populated by white miners from all continents, African tribesmen recruited to perform unskilled mine work, African women beer brewers who cooked for and sold beer to the black migrant workers, a very large number of European prostitutes, gangsters, impoverished Afrikaners, tradesmen, and Zulu ""AmaWasha"", Zulu men who surprisingly dominated laundry work."
"and formed the basis of the apartheid system, which dominated South African society for a century. The Mineral Revolution began with the discovery of diamonds at the town of Kimberley in 1867. The discovery of diamonds led to a rush of prospectors descending on the town, whose population skyrocketed as increasing numbers of prospectors arrived to seek their fortune. As more diggers arrived in Kimberley, diamond-mining increased in scale, focusing in open-pit mining of three main sites. As surface deposits of diamonds were excavated, deeper pits had to be dug, propelling the Mineral Revolution into a new phase. To excavate"
"arrival of Europeans or the discovery of gold. 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"" (citizen) was entitled to at least one farm, measuring 1500 morgen or about 3100 acres. The first recorded discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand was made by Jan Gerrit Bantjes in June 1884, on the farm Vogelstruisfontein. Other farms to become famous later included Langlaagte, Turffontein, Doornfontein and Braamfontein. George Harrison"
"East Rand The East Rand is the urban eastern part of the Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation in South Africa. This area became settled by Europeans after a gold-bearing reef was discovered in 1886 and sparked the gold rush that gave rise to the establishment of Johannesburg. The large black townships of the East Rand were the scene of heavy clashes between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party before the end of Apartheid. The region extends from Germiston in the west to Springs in the east, and south down to Nigel, and includes"
"Doornfontein Doornfontein is an inner-city suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, located to the east of the city centre, Region 8. The area, whose name means ""thorn fountain"", was originally the southern part of a farm owned by Frederick Jacobus Bezuidenhout, and was proclaimed a public diggings after the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886. The suburb was laid out in the late 1880s by Thomas Yeo, and became the first residential suburb of Johannesburg. In 1897 the freehold of the suburb was bought by a company owned by the mining magnate Barney Barnato, and the district became known"