History of Johannesburg
Encyclopedia
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
peoples. Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
is a very large city in Gauteng Province, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. The city was formally established in 1886 with the discovery of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
and the Witwatersrand reef
Witwatersrand
The Witwatersrand is a low, sedimentary range of hills, at an elevation of 1700–1800 metres above sea-level, which runs in an east-west direction through Gauteng in South Africa. The word in Afrikaans means "the ridge of white waters". Geologically it is complex, but the principal formations...
. After the discovery, the population of the city exploded, and Johannesburg became the largest city in South Africa. Today, it is a centre for learning and entertainment for all of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
.
Prehistoric Era
The Johannesburg area is settled by BushmenBushmen
The indigenous people of Southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe...
(or San), hunter-gatherers and Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
people. Over time, waves of migrants into the area established an Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
culture, until the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand
Witwatersrand
The Witwatersrand is a low, sedimentary range of hills, at an elevation of 1700–1800 metres above sea-level, which runs in an east-west direction through Gauteng in South Africa. The word in Afrikaans means "the ridge of white waters". Geologically it is complex, but the principal formations...
in 1886 .
The Gold Rush
Gold was discovered in the Johannesburg area in 1886, setting off a mass migration of people from all over the world into the settlement to find gold. The new settlement was named after two officials of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republijk (ZAR), Johannes Meyer and Johannes Rissik, who both worked in land surveying and mapping. It is widely believed that the two men combined their common first name to which they added 'burg', the archaic AfrikaansAfrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
word for 'fortified city'.
Before, during, and after Apartheid
Johannesburg was initially controlled from PretoriaPretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
, the government capital of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republijk ZAR
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
, or Transvaal Republic. The town was initially a small prospecting settlement to which people flocked from all regions of the country and the world, including such as the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
.
As a result of efforts to control the rich resources, tensions developed between the foreigners and the ZAR government and culminating in the South African War (1899–1902). The British government applied scorched-earth techniques which included the burning of crops and killing of livestock. Thousands of Africans and Boer
Boer
Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State,...
women and children were forcibly moved from their land into concentration camps, where some 40,000 people perished.
In 1902, the ZAR was annexed by the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
and the Peace of Vereeniging was signed. The South African War left the bulk of the Transvaal population homeless, poor and destitute and paving the way for urbanization, cheap labour and the extensive control of mining rights by foreigners.
During 1910, Lord Milner, governor of the Union
Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State...
government which was part of the British Commonwealth, instituted Land Alienation Acts which resulted in more rural blacks forced to leave for the mining hub in search of employment.
After the National Party took power in 1948, it instituted the Group Areas Act
Group Areas Act
The Group Areas Act of 1950 was an act of parliament created under the apartheid government of South Africa on 27th April 1950. The act assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of urban apartheid...
and forcibly moved black population groups out of inner Johannesburg areas, such as Sophiatown, to the newly developed Soweto
Soweto
Soweto is a lower-class-populated urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships...
, a name derived from South West Townships. Today the city of Soweto has more than 1 million inhabitants. It has shopping malls, clinics and the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is the second largest hospital in the world after West China hospital of Medical Sciences, Sichuan University, occupying , with 3 200 beds and 6 760 staff members. The hospital is in the Soweto area of Johannesburg, South Africa...
, the largest acute care
Acute care
Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery...
hospital in the world, which serves ±1.5 million people and provides specialist treatment to the country as well as to surrounding African states.
One of the most famous victims of the 1976 Soweto march, Hector Pieterson
Hector Pieterson
Hector Pieterson became the subject of an iconic image of the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa when a news photograph by Sam Nzima of the dying Hector being carried by another student while his sister ran next to them, was published around the world. He was killed at the age of 12 when the...
, was commemorated with a large Museum
Hector Pieterson Museum
The Hector Pieterson Museum is a large museum located in Orlando West, Soweto, South Africa, two blocks away from where Hector Pieterson was shot and killed. The museum is named in his honour. It became one of the first museums in Soweto when it opened in 16 June 2002...
dedicated to his memory, in Soweto.
Today, Johannesburg suburbs are integrated and multiracial. Inner city crime and neglect have resulted in the large-scale migration of businesses and commerce away from the Central Business District
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
to the more affluent northern suburbs such as Houghton and Parktown, and to northern cities such as Sandton, Midrand and Pretoria (white flight
White flight
White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...
).
Currently the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council, with financial support from mining houses and property developers, is implementing a large scale Inner City Revival project, leading to some businesses moving back to the inner city, and the establishment of a new vibrant population.