Nigel is a small

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

mining town in

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

Province,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, south-east of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

. The town is at the south-eastern edge of the area known as the

East Rand The East Rand is the urban eastern part of the Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation in South Africa. The region extends from Alberton in the west to Nigel in the east, and south down to Nigel. It includ ...

Background

A farmer, shopkeeper and prospector, Petrus Johannes Marais, having read Sir

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

's ''

The Fortunes of Nigel ''The Fortunes of Nigel'' (1822) is one of the Waverley novels by Sir Walter Scott. Set in London in either 1623 or 1624, it centres on the Scottish community there after the Union of the Crowns and features James VI and I . Composition and so ...

'' at the time (see

Nigel Nigel ( ) is an English language, English masculine given name. The English ''Nigel'' is commonly found in records dating from the Middle Ages; however, it was not used much before being revived by 19th-century antiquarians. For instance, Walte ...

), formed the

Nigel Gold Mining Company Nigel ( ) is an English masculine given name. The English ''Nigel'' is commonly found in records dating from the Middle Ages; however, it was not used much before being revived by 19th-century antiquarians. For instance, Walter Scott published ...

after the discovery of gold on the farm Varkensfontein in 1886. The town, which grew around the mine, still bears names derived from Scott's book and its characters with the suburb of ''Glenvarloch'' and its streets derived from that source. Today the town is focused primarily on mining and also has various heavy industries. The town became known as the setting of the popular Afrikaans-sitcom ''Vetkoekpaleis'', a sitcom that revolves around the daily lives of staff members of the Vetkoekpaleis (a

Vetkoek Vetkoek (, ) is a traditional South African fried dough bread. The vetkoek forms a part of South African culture. It is similar to the Caribbean Johnny cake, the Dutch '' oliebol'', and the Mexican '' sopaipillas''. It is also known by the Xh ...

-themed fast-food restaurant). Nigel's municipal government became part of the much larger

City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality The City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality that forms the local government of the East Rand region of Gauteng. The municipality itself is a large suburban region east of Johannesburg. The name ''Ekurhuleni'' m ...

following the creation of new local government structures in 2000, along with most of rest of the

. On 1 August 2010, a fire at the Pieter Wessels old age home led to the deaths of 22 people.

Main Places

* Alra-park * Mackenzie-Ville * Snake-park (Informal Settlement)

References

External links

Nigel Business Directory
East Rand Populated places in Ekurhuleni Mining communities in South Africa {{Gauteng-geo-stub