Tshwane
Tshwane is (as of 5 December 2000) a metropolitan area in Gauteng province, South Africa, that includes the city of Pretoria.
It is is made up of 13 former city and town councils and is managed by means of an executive mayoral system. The size of the area is more than 3,200 square kilometers and it has a population of about 2,2 million people.
The name is derived from the original name given by the first (Nguni-speaking) settlers (who later became known as the Ndebele) to the main river that flows through the area. They named it after one of their chiefs, Tshwane (from the Ndebele word for "little ape").
The name Tshwane is sometimes also used as an alternative name for the city of Pretoria itself, although Pretoria had not been renamed as of 2004, and a renaming is unlikely.
Areas
Tshwane consists of the following areas:
- Ga-Rankuwa (Established in 1961 after forced removals to the area. It is named after one of the Bakgatla headmen, Rankuwa Boikhutso.)
- Centurion (Formerly called Verwoerdburg.)
- Temba (Established in 1940 after forced removals.)
- Mabopane (Established in 1969.)
- Winterveld
- The area of the Northern Pretoria Metropolitan Substructure. This area includes the industrial area known as Rosslyn as well as a township, Soshanguve, which was established to accommodate non-Tswana-speaking people when Bophuthatswana became an independent homeland. (Soshanguve is an acronym that was created to reflect the township's cosmopolitan character: Sotho, Shangaan, Nguni (Swazi, Zulu, Xhosa) and Venda.)
- Pretoria
- Pienaarsrivier (Named after the Pienaars River that runs through it, this is the smallest of Tshwane`s former councils.)
- Crocodile River (This area stretches from Rosslyn/Ga-Rankuwa in the north to Lanseria in the south and from the western side of Pretoria towards the Hartebeespoortdam.)
- The area formerly known as the Greater Pretoria Metropolitan Council. This council was one of the four local authorities in Gauteng province. It consisted of three local councils: the City Council of Pretoria, the Council of Centurion and the Northern Pretoria Metropolitan Substructure.
- Wallmannsthal
- Hammanskraal
