Beyers Naudé Drive is a large

arterial route An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below highways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector roads to high ...

Johannesburg, South Africa Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

. It starts at the

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg, colloquially known as UJ, is a public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant fundi ...

Auckland Park Auckland Park is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It lies on a gentle slope, and is in close proximity to the suburbs of Melville, Brixton, Westdene and Richmond. Auckland Park is one of the few suburbs close to the Johannesburg city c ...

, travelling through Melville, Roosevelt Park,

Northcliff Northcliff is a wealthy residential suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. The suburb is located on Northcliff Ridge which provides views to both the north and the south. Northcliff's huge homes are nestled around a steep incline of the hill, and ...

, Blackheath and traversing the N1 Western Bypass at

Randpark Ridge Randpark Ridge is an suburb, upmarket suburb of Randburg, South Africa. It is located in Region B of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, City of Johannesburg. It fell into the town of Randburg during the apartheid era. Developed in ...

. It terminates at the N14 freeway near

Muldersdrift Muldersdrift, in the Gauteng Province of South Africa, is a picturesque rural area situated 27 km north-west of Johannesburg, between Johannesburg and the Magaliesberg mountain range. The area falls under the West Rand District Municipality, ...

. It was previously known as DF Malan Drive. It forms part of Johannesburg's M5 road.

Background

On old Johannesburg municipal maps, the rough roadway was called the Mulders Drift Road. Later it was renamed DF Malan Drive after the South African Prime Minister DF Malan. In September 2001, DF Malan Drive was renamed Beyers Naudé Drive after celebrated anti-

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

pastor

Beyers Naudé Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naudé (10 May 1915 – 7 September 2004) was a South African Afrikaner Calvinist Dominee, theologian and the leading Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist. He was known simply as Beyers Naudé, or more colloquially, ...

. He was excommunicated by the

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, , abbreviated NHK ) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the traditional denomination of the Dutch royal famil ...

for his views, but subsequently re-accepted after apartheid's abolition. The drive links the

inner city The term inner city (also called the hood) has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Soc ...

of Johannesburg to the far western regions of

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

over a distance of 30 kilometres. It varies from being three lanes in each direction through Roosevelt Park and Randpark Ridge to being single lanes in each direction through Honeydew/Zandspruit and further out to Muldersdrift. Several

shopping malls A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, it began to be used as a generi ...

, the largest being

Cresta Shopping Centre Cresta Shopping Centre is a shopping centre in Randburg, South Africa. It is located on the border of Northcliff and Cresta. It has gone through multiple extensions and refurbishments. The mall is owned by Pareto, a unit of the Public Investme ...

in Blackheath, are located along Beyers Naudé Drive. It is a major arterial route for residents of

Randburg Randburg is an area located in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Formerly a separate municipality, its administration devolved to the newly created City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, along with neighbouring Sandton and Roodepoort ...

and

Roodepoort Roodepoort ( ) is a city in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Formerly an independent municipality, Roodepoort became part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Johannesburg municipality in the late 1990s, along with Randburg ...

to access the

city centre A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the Commerce, commercial, Culture, cultural and often the historical, Politics, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely e ...

(

Braamfontein Braamfontein ( English: ''blackberry spring'', or more prosaicly ''blackberry springs''; also known as Braam) is a central suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa, seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and some of South Africa's major c ...

and the M1 highway through the city centre).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beyers Naude Drive Streets and roads of Johannesburg