Gauteng Information Bureau
Situated in the heart of the High veld, Gauteng is the smallest province in South Africa, with only 1.4% of the land area, but it is highly urbanized, containing the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. As of 2007, it had a population of nearly 10.5 million, making it the most populous province in South Africa.
The name Gauteng comes from the Sesotho word meaning “Place of Gold”, the historical Sesotho name for Johannesburg and surrounding areas. This referred to the thriving gold industry in the province following the 1886 discovery of gold in Johannesburg. The Sesotho word is a locative derived from the Afrikaans goud (gold) plus the locative suffix “–ng”. When properly pronounced, the first letter of the name Gauteng is a voiceless velar fricative, pronounced similarly to the “ch” in the German achtung or Scottish loch. This pronunciation is natural in both the Sesotho and Afrikaans languages.
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