Gauteng

The Sotho word, Gauteng, meaning "Place of Gold", is the new name of the Pretoria-Witwaterstrand-Vaal Triangle - one of the largest industrial regions in the southern hemisphere. A more fitting label would be hard to find.

In 1886, on a patch of windswept veld, an unemployed miner stumbled upon a stone bearing traces of gold. This seemingly insignificant event had colossal repercussions and led to the discovery of the world's richest natural treasure house. Speculators, prospectors, fortune-seekers and adventurers arrived in the area from the ends of the earth, and the pastoral landscape changed almost overnight.

Gold rush shantytowns sprang up and were rapidly transformed into modern concrete cities, Johannesburg became "The Gold Capital of the World", and the entire country was catapulted into an economic boom. The revenue generated from gold, the most valuable of South Africa's exports, has enabled the country to develop its impressive industrial, commercial and financial strength.

Today, in a great, still growing concrete sprawl, Gauteng comprises the commercial heart of South Africa. But much of the region has escaped industrial development. In dozens of quiet retreats and leisure resorts, city-dwellers find relaxation and a welcome respite from day-to-day routine.

The People of Gauteng

South Africa is home to an extraordinary variety of ethnic groups, cultures, creeds and languages. The history of this human diversity extends over millennia to the original inhabitants - the Stone Age hunter-gatherers known as Bushmen. Black migrants arrived from the north to supplant them, and they, in turn, were followed by European and Indian immigrants. Gauteng today is a dynamic, cosmopolitan kaleidoscope representing most of these different cultural components.