Kempton Park, Gauteng

Province

Kempton Park is a large city in South Africa. It belongs to the province of Gauteng and is located in the Ekurhuleni region, which was formerly known in a similar situation as the East Rand. 2011 Kempton Park had 171 575 inhabitants.

Geographical location

Kempton Park is located in the northeast of the Witwatersrand. Closest cities are Johannesburg, South West, Germiston in the South, Benoni in the East and Tembisa in the north. Tembisa is one of the largest townships in the country, was established in 1957.

History

The German Carl Friedrich Wolff played since 1881 an important role as a mediator between the South African government and the Nobel Trust, which built a dynamite factory. Through negotiations with landowners Wolff came to land ownership. So he became owner of the farm Zuurfontein ( Afrikaans; German: " sour source " ), by which he separated out as a part of the residential area. He called him Kempton Park to his Bavarian hometown of Kempten.

1952 the Jan Smuts Airport was built on the area of Kempton Park. He is the main airport in South Africa and since 2006, OR Tambo International Airport is called.

1992 Kempton Park was declared a City. On June 25 1993, the Afrikaner Kempton Park World Trade Centre by around 3000 members of resistance movements was occupied. In the building at the time negotiations on the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa took place.

2000, the city was part of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality.

Economy

Situated in Kempton Park, there are numerous industrial enterprises, especially the chemical industry. A coal power plant is also found here.

Traffic

Kempton Park is located in close proximity to the OR Tambo International Airport. On a railway line, which connects the airport to Johannesburg and Pretoria, has been operating since 2010, the Gautrain (short for: Gauteng Train).

In road transport, the city is served by highways R21, R23 and R24. The N12 runs south of Kempton Park in the east-west direction.

Sons and daughters of the town

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