Pretoria
is one of the three
capital cities
of the
African
country
of
South Africa
. It is the
executive
(
administrative
) and
de facto
capital of the country. The other two capitals are
Cape Town
(
legislative
) and
Bloemfontein
(
judicial
). The city is in the northern part of
Gauteng Province
, South Africa.
Pretoria is between the
Highveld
and the
Bushveld
, about 50
km
north of
Johannesburg
in the north-east of South Africa. It is in a warm, well
sheltered
valley
. The valley is surrounded by the hills of the
Magaliesberg
mountain
range. Pretoria has a
humid subtropical climate
(Cwa in the
Koppen climate classification
).
Snow
is a very rare event. It only snows in Pretoria once or twice in a
century
.
The city has a
population
of about 1.9 million people. The main
languages
spoken in Pretoria include
Tswana
,
Ndebele
,
Afrikaans
, and
English
.
Nguni
-speaking
settlers
were probably the first people to live in the river valley that later became the location of the city of Pretoria.
Pretoria was
founded
in 1855 by
Marthinus Wessel Pretorius
. He was a leader of the
Voortrekkers
. Pretoruis named the city after his father
Andries Pretorius
. Andries Pretorius had become a
hero
of the Voortrekkers after the
Battle of Blood River
. The city became the capital of the
South African Republic
(ZAR) on May 1, 1860.
During the
First Boer War
, the city was
attacked
in December 1880 and March 1881. The
peace treaty
which ended the
war
was signed in Pretoria on August 3, 1881 at the
Pretoria Convention
.
The
Second Boer War
(1899 to 1902) caused the end of the South African Republic. After this war, the
United Kingdom
took control of South Africa. During the war,
Winston Churchill
was
imprisoned
in the Staats Model School in Pretoria. He later got free and went to
Mozambique
. The city
surrendered
to
British
forces
on June 5, 1900. The war ended in Pretoria with the signing of the
Peace of Vereeniging
on May 31 1902.
In 1910, Pretoria then became the
administrative
capital of all of South Africa, with Cape Town the
legislative
capital. Between 1860 and 1994, the city was also the capital of the province of
Transvaal
. On 14 October 1931, Pretoria got official
city
status. When South Africa became a
republic
in 1961, Pretoria stayed its administrative capital.
Pretoria was at one time seen as "the capital of
Apartheid
South Africa". This was changed when
Nelson Mandela
became the country's first black
President
.
Elon Musk the founder, chairman, CEO and chief technology officer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, chairman and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$241 billion as of September 2023, according to the
Bloomberg Billionaires Index
, and $261 billion according to
Forbes
, primarily from his ownership stakes in both Tesla and SpaceX
Pretoria is an important
industrial
centre. It has many industries including
iron
and
steel
as well as
automobile
,
railroad
and
machinery
manufacture
.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Pretoria
.
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