Johannesburg (also known as Jozi, Jo'burg, eGoli, and Joeys, and abbreviated as JHB) is the largest city in South Africa. It is the provincial capital of Gauteng, which is the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa. The city is one of the 50 largest urban agglomerations in the world, and is also the world's largest city not situated on a river, lake, or coastline.
While Johannesburg is not one of South Africa's three capital cities, it is the seat of the Constitutional Court, which has the final word on interpretation of South Africa's constitution. The city is the source of a large-scale gold and diamond trade, due to its location on the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills.
A separate city from the late 1970s until the 1990s, Soweto is
now part of Johannesburg. Originally an acronym for "South-Western Townships",
Soweto originated as a collection of settlements on the outskirts of Johannesburg,
populated mostly by native African workers from the gold mining industry. In
1985, Nigel Mandy (BA Law - CA), the first General Manager of the Carlton
Centre, authored a book entitled A City Divided, which intimated
that Soweto and Johannesburg were divided from a fiscal point of view, as well
as by law and by people. He assisted the government, both of the now-defunct
Transvaal province, as well as of Gauteng, post-1994, in developing a process
whereby black, coloured, Indian, and white people who had been deprived of home
ownership during apartheid, could own homes. 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.
Johannesburg has a population of 3.2 million people (South African 2001
census), half of which live in Soweto and adjacent suburbs. The
majority of the population is formed by South Africa's black residents who
mostly live in Soweto, while white residents amount to 500,000 (although
the number is likely to be higher). There are also around 300,000 residents of
other descent. Unlike other South African cities, no language group dominates,
although English is the established lingua franca.The city is the economic hub of South Africa, and increasingly for the rest of Africa. Although estimates vary, about 10% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP is generated in Johannesburg. Yet the city's wealth is unequally distributed among its inhabitants causing the city to have, within its own borders, living conditions varying from first world standards to third world conditions. The contrast between rich and poor has led to one of the highest crime rates in the world. The more affluent tend to live in houses with a high level of security by western standards, whilst the less affluent live in less desirable housing conditions.
There are many things that are unique to Johannesburg. It features a distinct street entrepreneurship, and motorists can buy things from vendors selling goods at traffic lights, as in many other developing-world cities. This includes food, umbrellas, soccer balls, cellular phone accessories and many other goods. Barber shops consisting of nothing but a chair and an enthusiastic barber can be found on the sides of roads, although they tend to specialize in African rather than Caucasian hair. Mine dumps can also be seen throughout the city and are a reminder of the city's legacy of gold mining. These dumps are fast disappearing as new gold extraction techniques have made it profitable for mining companies to reprocess these dumps.
With around 6 million trees, Johannesburg is most likely the world's largest man-made urban forest. The city is certainly one of the greenest in the world, considering that the natural landscape is savannah.
The weather is generally regarded as excellent; temperatures reach the mid-30s Celsius (95°F) in the summer months (Dec-Feb) with little to no wind and with occasional, spectacular afternoon thunderstorms. Temperatures in winter can drop into single digits but snow is extremely rare.
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