Germiston

Germiston
Germiston
Coordinates	26 ° 13 ′  S , 28 ° 10 ′  E Coordinates: 26 ° 13 ′  S , 28 ° 10 ′  E
Basic data
Country	South Africa
province	Gauteng
metropolis	Ekurhuleni
Residents	255,863 (2011)
Metropolitan area	3,178,470 (October 2011)
founding	1886
View of the center of Germiston

Germiston is a city in the South African province of Gauteng .

geography

Germiston is about ten kilometers east of Johannesburg . The city has been part of the metropolitan municipality of Ekurhuleni since 1999 , in which the previously independent municipalities of the East Rand , the eastern part of the Witwatersrand , were combined. In 2011 Germiston had 255,863 inhabitants.

history

View from Germiston to the gold mines around 1900, No. 2 is the Simmer East Mine

Germiston emerged from 1886 as a mining town for the company The Simmer & Jack Gold Mining Co. Ltd. . As the owners of a shop on Lake Chrissie , August Simmer and John Jack had taken half of the farm Elandsfontein owned by farmer Johan Georg Meyer in payment. Shortly after the gold discoveries in what would later become Johannesburg, gold was also found on Elandsfontein. After the company was founded in 1887, Germiston was laid out as a planned settlement and named after the birthplace of John Jack in Scotland. Today's neighboring town of Alberton was built on the second part of the former farm .

Germiston became a parish in 1903 and a city in 1950. Germiston is home to the largest rail hub in South Africa, a racetrack called WesBank Raceway, and the Rand Refinery (founded in 1921), the largest gold refinery in the world. Germiston has been the seat of administration for the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since 2000 . The administrative building of the administrative district is named after the city founder August Simmer Building .

sons and daughters of the town

• Andries du Plessis (1910–1979), pole vaulter
• Ted Grant (1913-2006), Trotskyist politician and author
• Edwin Thacker (1913–1974), athlete
• Bobby Locke (1917–1987), South Africa's first internationally successful golfer
• Helen Suzman (1917-2009), anti-apartheid activist
• Doug Serrurier (1920–2006), racing car driver
• Syd Luyt (1925-2010), marathon runner
• Sydney Brenner (1927-2019), British geneticist
• Henry Loubscher (born 1936), boxer
• Oliver Kraas (* 1975), cross-country skier
• Hestrie Cloete b. Storbeck (* 1978), high jumper and two-time world champion
• John Smith (* 1990), rower and 2012 Olympic champion
• Joshua Maurer (* 1996), Canadian ski jumper

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. en: East Rand , version 151659629
2. ↑ 2011 census , accessed October 3, 2013
3. ↑ Eric Rosenthal: Gold! Gold! Gold! The Johannesburg Gold Rush . The Macmillan Company, New York 1970, p. 163
4. ↑ City of Ekurhuleni (bottom left) issuu.com (English), accessed on April 12, 2018
5. ↑ http://www.randrefinery.com
6. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from September 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Germiston  - collection of images, videos and audio files