| City of Tshwane | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| — Metropolitan municipality — | |||
| Tshwane just south of Pretoria | |||
|
|||
| Motto: We are the same | |||
| Map of Gauteng with Tshwane highlighted | |||
| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | South Africa | ||
| Province | Gauteng | ||
| Established | 5 December 2000[1] | ||
| Constituent Areas |
List
|
||
| Government | |||
| • Executive Mayor | Kgosientso Ramokgopa[2] | ||
| • Acting City Manager | Oupa Nkoane[2] | ||
| Area[3] | |||
| • Total | 6,368 km2 (2,458.7 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2007)[3][4] | |||
| • Total | 2,345,908 | ||
| • Estimate (2011) | 2,500,000 | ||
| • Density | 368.4/km2 (954.1/sq mi) | ||
| • Households | 686,640 | ||
| Racial makeup[5] (2007) | |||
| • Black African | 74.59% | ||
| • White | 22.07% | ||
| • Coloured | 2.03% | ||
| • Indian or Asian | 1.31% | ||
| Time zone | SAST (UTC+2) | ||
| Area code(s) | 012 | ||
The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality i/ˈtswɑːneɪ/ (also known as the City of Tshwane) is a metropolitan municipality that forms the local government of northern Gauteng Province, South Africa and includes the city of Pretoria.
Contents |
The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality was established on 5 December 2000 [1] and, when founded, was made up of 13 former city and town councils and managed by means of an executive mayoral system.
The Metsweding District Municipality was incorporated into the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality,[6] with effect from 18 May 2011 (the date of the 2011 municipal elections). The municipality also controversially sought to incorporate Midrand, which is part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality to offset the costs of absorbing Metsweding, amid a financial crisis in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality.[7]
The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality's land area increased from 2,198 square kilometres (849 sq mi)[8] in 2010 to 6,368 square kilometres (2,459 sq mi) after the incorporation of Metsweding.[3]
The Tswaing crater is located in the north west of Soshanguve.
The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality consists of the following areas:[9]
There are around 2 200 000 (2004 est) [10] people living within the borders of Tshwane; 72.65% black, 23.84% white, 1.99% coloured and 1.52% Indian or Asian[8]
The main rail station is located in Pretoria.
The Gautrain runs through parts of the municipality, with stations in Centurion and Pretoria, ending at a station in the suburb of Hatfield.
Oliver R Tambo International Airport in bordering Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality serves Tshwane. Wonderboom Airport in the north of Tshwane serves light aircraft.
There are also two military air bases, AFB Swartkop and AFB Waterkloof.
AFB Waterkloof and AFB Swartkop are located in Tshwane
Although the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality was only created in 2000, prior to that a military base in the city (formerly called Voortrekkerhoogte after the Voortrekkers and before that Roberts Heights after Lord Roberts), was renamed Thaba Tshwane (or Thaba Tswane).
The SANDF memorial is located ot Fort Klapperkop and the South African Air Force memorial is located at AFB Swartkop
There are a large number of museums, many of them located within Pretoria
The Tshwane municipality is home to both the largest residential university in the country,[11] the Tshwane University of Technology and the largest distance education university (the University of South Africa, more commonly known by its acronym, UNISA). The University of Pretoria, one of South Africa's leading research and teaching universities, University of Limpopo (Medunsa Campus) (Formerly known as Medical University of Southern Africa) a Medical School in the North of Tshwane and the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) are located in the municipality.
Tshwane [tsʰwane] is the Setswana name of the Apies River, which flows throw the city. The origin of the name of the river is unclear. It may mean "place (-e) of the black cow (tshwana)", from ceremonies where a black cow was sprinkled with water from the river to end a drought.[12] Another claim is that it was named after Tshwane, son of Chief Mushi, and Ndebele leader who settled near the Apies River about a century before the arrival of the Voortrekkers in the early 19th century.[12] However, some Ndebele kings claim to have never heard of a chief named "Tshwane".[13]
Two other common explanations are demonstrably untrue. One is that it is the Tswana for the motto of Tshwane Municipality, "We are the same". However, this appears to be promoted for its emotional value; if anything, it would mean "we are not the same" in Tswana (ga re tshwane).[12] Another common misunderstanding is that it is the Tswana word for "little monkeys"; although it resembles the Tswana word for baboon, tshwene, "little monkeys" is actually the translation of the Afrikaans name "Apies".
The name Tshwane is sometimes also used as an alternate name for the city of Pretoria itself, and following the city council's vote of March 8, 2005, it could become the city's new name if approved by the central government. Should the change take place, "Pretoria" would continue to refer to the city's central business district, as proposed by the current municipality. By November 2007 the change of the name from Pretoria to Tshwane had not been finalized, and controversy over the name change continues. The change of name is seen by many as a way to recognize that peoples of non-colonial origins represent a majority in the city. The controversy however says that the city was originally established under the name Pretoria, little evidence has been provided for the origin of the name “Tshwane”, and no form of jurisdiction for the area existed prior to Pretoria’s creation.
The Sunday Times used the word Tshwane to refer to the Pretoria area for a short period in 2005. The state-controlled SABC also started using the term in its evening news broadcasts, for a period, but by 2010, had reverted to "Pretoria", and private media outlets continued to refer to the metropolitan area as Pretoria. The Pretoria News newspaper, the main paper in the metropolitan area did not appear to have plans to change its name as of early 2006, although it has adopted the slogan The paper for the people of Tshwane. The newspaper appears to experience confusion when it refers to the capital city; sometimes calling it Tshwane and sometimes Pretoria. This, together with the public backing of the name change by the editor of the Pretoria News, Philani Mgwaba,[14] has led to the independence of the newspaper's editorial team being called into question. Currently, the only news media that refers to the capital city as Tshwane is the Pretoria News, SocietyNews.co.za.
The proposed name has evoked a strong negative reaction from some South Africans. Many businesspeople do not want to change their stationery and many feel that the cost of the name change would be better spent dealing with the country's high poverty rates and current Aids crisis. There is also an argument that whereas the name "Pretoria" is recognized worldwide, "Tshwane" is not.
Road signs erected at the boundaries of the Tshwane Metropolitan area have been consistently defaced, with the word Tshwane replaced with the word Pretoria, presumably by South Africans opposed to the name change. The letters PTA, which are an abbreviation of "Pretoria", have also been stencilled on a number of speed limit signs .
On 21 May 2005, the Pretoria Civil Action Committee, a group consisting of business, labour, cultural, civil and political leaders opposed to the name change organised a protest against the name change in the Pretoria city centre.[15] They marched to the office of Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan and handed him a petition signed by 3000 University of Pretoria students as well as various other petition documents. Former president FW De Klerk, a Nobel prize winner and the last president under apartheid, also raised concerns about the name change.[16]
In November 2005, the Advertising Standards Authority found that advertising proclaiming that Tshwane, rather than Pretoria, was the capital of South Africa was misleading.[17] The reason being that no city named Tshwane has yet been registered as a geographic place name, and Pretoria has not yet been renamed.
On 5 December 2000 a number of old Pretoria municipalities as well as others that fell outside the Greater Pretoria area were combined into one metropolitan area called The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. The city of Pretoria remained largely intact within this municipality. The debate around the possible name change of the city of Pretoria raged ever since.
On the 26 May 2005 the South African Geographical Names Council unanimously approved a recommendation by the Tshwane Metro Council that the name Pretoria be changed to Tshwane.[18]
The legal process involved is as follows:
Some controversial groups have attached themselves to the Pretoria name-change issue, including the trade union Solidarity.[19] Solidarity and the Pretoria Civil Action Committee have threatened legal action should the name change be recommended by the minister.
As of November 2007 the name change has not yet been approved or rejected by the minister (step 4 above).
Early August 2007, it was reported in the press that the Municipality, after consulting with the Gauteng provincial government had withdrawn the application to change the name, and was instead contemplating a plan to change all road signs pointing to "Pretoria", to "Tshwane" or the "City of Tshwane" across the country. This plan raised threats of legal action from both political groupings opposed to the renaming, and concerns from municipal officials about the possibility of vandalism to the proposed road signs.[20][21] Later reports appeared to contradict these claims, to some extent.[22]
In 2010, the Ministry of Arts and Culture prepared to publish the registration of Tshwane as a place name, in the Government Gazette, however the registration was withdrawn at the last minute, and this was explained by the minister. Although it was too late to remove the name from printing in the Government Gazette, the retraction of the name registration was published the following week in the gazette.[23]
In November 2011, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, who had been elected mayor earlier that year, vowed to push forward with the renaming in 2012[1].
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||