Johannesburg

Johannesburg (/dʒoʊˈhænᵻsbɜːrɡ/; Afrikaans: [joˈɦɐnəsbœrχ]; also known as Jozi, Jo'burg, eGoli, and Joeys, and abbreviated as JHB) is the largest city in South Africa. It is the provincial capital of Gauteng, which is the wealthiest province in South Africa. The city is one of the 50 largest urban agglomerations in the world, and is also the world's largest city not situated on a river, lake, or coastline. The city was named and established in 1886 following the discovery of gold on what had been a farm. The city is commonly interpreted as the modern day El Dorado due to the extremely large gold deposit found along the Witwatersrand The name is attributed to one or all of three men involved in the establishment of the city. In ten years, the population was 100,000 inhabitants. While Johannesburg is not one of South Africa's three capital cities, it is the seat of the Constitutional Court, which has the final word on interpretation of South Africa's constitution as well as with issues in connection with constitutional matters. The city is the source of a large-scale gold and diamond trade, due to its location on the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills.

Apartment

An apartment (in American and Canadian English) or a flat (in British English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies only part of a building, correctly, on a single level without a stair. Such a building may be called an apartment building, apartment complex (in American English), apartment house (in American English), block of flats, tower block, high-rise or, occasionally mansion block (in British English), especially if it consists of many apartments for rent. In Scotland it is called a block of flats or, if it's a traditional sandstone building, a tenement, which has a pejorative connotation elsewhere. Apartments may be owned by an owner/occupier, by leasehold tenure or rented by tenants (two types of housing tenure).

Terminology

The term apartment is favoured in North America (although flat is used in the case of a unit which is part of a house containing two or three units, typically one to a floor) and also is the preferred term in Ireland. In the UK, the term apartment is more usual in professional real estate and architectural circles where otherwise the term flat is commonly, but not exclusively, for an apartment without a stair (hence a 'flat' apartment). Technically multi-storey apartments are referred to as 'duplex' (or 'triplex') indicating the number of floors within the property. Usage generally follows the British in Singapore, Hong Kong and most Commonwealth nations.

Bedroom

A bedroom is a room of a house, mansion, hotel, student residence, or apartment where people sleep. A typical Western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds (ranging from a crib for an infant, a small twin bed for a single person, twin beds for two people, to a king-size bed for a couple), a clothes closet, a nightstand, and a dresser (dressing table). Except in bungalows or one-storey motels, bedrooms are usually on one of the floors of a dwelling that is above ground level.

Bedrooms typically have a door for privacy (in some cases lockable from inside) and a window for ventilation. In larger bedrooms, a small desk and chair or an upholstered chair and a chest of drawers may also be used. In Western countries, some large bedrooms, called master bedrooms, may also contain a bathroom. Where space allows bedrooms may also have televisions and / or video players.

In larger Victorian houses it was common to have accessible from the bedroom a boudoir for the lady of the house and a dressing room for the gentleman.Attic bedrooms exist in some houses; since they are only separated from the outside air by the roof they are typically cold in winter and may be too hot in summer. The slope of the rafters supporting a pitched roof also makes them inconvenient. In houses where servants were living in they often used attic bedrooms.

South Africa

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost sovereign state in Africa. It is bounded on the south by 2,798 kilometers of coastline of southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, on the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and on the east by Mozambique and Swaziland, and surrounding the kingdom of Lesotho. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area, and with close to 53 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere.

South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, which is among the highest number of any country in the world. Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most white and coloured South Africans; English reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life, though it is fourth-ranked as a spoken first language.

Gauteng

Gauteng (/xaʊˈtɛŋ/; Sotho pronunciation [xɑ́.ú.ˈtʼè.ŋ̀]) which means "gold" is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed from part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africa's first all-race elections on 27 April 1994. It was initially named Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging (PWV) and was renamed "Gauteng" in December 1994.

Situated in the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province in South Africa, accounting for only 1.5% of the land area. Nevertheless, it is highly urbanised, containing the country's largest city, Johannesburg, its administrative capital, Pretoria, and other large industrial areas such as Midrand and Vanderbijlpark. As of 2015, it has a population of nearly 13.2 million, making it the most populous province in South Africa.

Etymology

The name Gauteng is derived from the Sotho name, "gauta" meaning "gold" with [locative suffix "-eng"]. This is due to the thriving gold industry in the province following the 1886 discovery of gold in Johannesburg. In Sesotho the name "Gauteng" was used for Johannesburg and surrounding areas long before it was adopted in 1994 as the official name of a province.