‘There’s a train that comes from Namibia and Malawi. There’s a train that comes from Zambia and Zimbabwe. There’s a train that comes from Angola and Mozambique - from Lesotho from Botswana from Swaziland.’
These lines are from Hugh Masekela’s quintessential anthem, Stimela (steam engine), which profoundly captures the essence of the millions of migrant labourers who, since 4 October 1886 (when the first claims were laid out), have mined the gold that built the economy of Johannesburg and South Africa.
The city today has progressed far beyond the status of a mere gold rush settlement, and has grown quickly into a vibrant, pulsating city that is now the economic powerhouse of sub-Saharan Africa and the largest urban space in South Africa.
Johannesburg is the capital of South Africa’s province of Gauteng, which means ‘place of gold’ in Sesotho, while in the isiZulu language Johannesburg is known as Egoli, which simply means ‘gold’.
While the city was built on the richest gold reef in the world (it has produced 40% of all the world’s gold), these epithets are no longer quite fitting, as the last of Johannesburg’s mines ran out of gold-bearing ore in the 1970s.
The towering yellow mine dumps that used to characterise the city are increasingly being flattened for development for new commercial, retail and industrial districts, but it is believed that a few will remain as a reminder of the city’s history.
Situated 550km (344 miles) from the nearest port, on a vast inland plateau, 1,700m (5,700ft) high, Johannesburg’s climate is much milder and drier than its latitude would suggest. It is sub-Saharan Africa’s greatest city, and at over 1,600sq km (620 sq miles) is one of the world’s largest inland cities.
Johannesburg straddles rows of jagged quartzite ridges, beneath which a century of gold mining has produced a veritable honeycomb of tunnels. Technology may have claimed the mine sands, but millions of trees have risen from the sprawling suburbs and on satellite images, much of Johannesburg resembles a rainforest. This is an unexpected backdrop to a formidable array of Victorian and Edwardian architecture, as well as concrete, chrome and glass skyscrapers and a tangle of highways.
Although the government is on a constant programme to build more homes, in outlying Soweto (an acronym for South West Township) and the other townships on the peripheral of Johannesburg, makeshift shacks of scrap bear testimony to the chasm between the fantastically wealthy and the desperately poor that still divides this city.
Since the breakdown of apartheid and the abolition of pass laws in the 1980s, Jozi, Jo’burg or Joeys to the locals, has undergone a dramatic change. Black people, formerly excluded from living (legally) outside of townships, such as Soweto, moved into the downtown and inner-city areas.
The centre of Johannesburg took on an African feel again with a clamouring street life. Meanwhile the former privileged (white) citizens migrated outwards to the northern suburbs due to increased crime and squalor.
Today, while crime may have become synonymous with Johannesburg in the minds of many people, things are steadily improving thanks to the city’s new police force, the Metro Police, and the ubiquitous security cameras that now feature on almost every street corner. In the future the city should be a lot safer to visit.
The authorities are also in the throes of cleaning and improving the city centre. In Newtown street names have been changed and are now named after contemporary South African musicians and singers as opposed to apartheid stalwarts, Mary Fitzgerald Square has been paved, and streets have been pedestrianised to form attractive precincts.