Brakpan is a mining town on the

East Rand The East Rand is a major urban area located in the Gauteng province of South Africa. It is the urban eastern part of Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation. The region extends from Alberton in the west to ...

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 ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, approximately 38 kilometres (23.6 mi) east of

Johannesburg 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 ...

History

The name Brakpan comes from a small pan on a farm called Weltevreden, which was filled with very

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

water and was probably referred to as the "brakpan", and it was near this pan that the first settlement started. In 1888, a coal seam was discovered and a coal mine under the name of Brakpan Collieries was started. When a railway line was constructed from

Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions as the m ...

to Springs, Brakpan became one of the stations along the route. With gold fever running high on the

Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand (, ; ; locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, w ...

in the early years of the twentieth century, it was not long before gold was discovered. In 1905, Brakpan Mines Company sunk its first two gold mining shafts. One of its claims to fame was that it had the highest mine dump in the world at that time, above ground level. This was higher than any of the pyramids of Egypt except the Pyramid of Cheops. From 1905 the village began to grow rapidly, remaining a suburb of Benoni until 1912 when it was granted the status of a municipality and proclaimed as a town. Brakpan's central position makes it a good distribution centre for industry, especially engineering works and foundries. In the late 1990s the municipality approved the construction of a huge casino and entertainment complex, Carnival City,
Carnival City's web page which opened the town to tourists and provided much-needed jobs for the people. The first activity which drew people to the area was the British coal mining in 1888 and the large coal powered power station also built by the British. A tram line to Johannesburg was built at this time to service the power station. The Main Reef Road (today part of the R29 (South Africa), R29) linked Brakpan to all the other mining towns in the

. Brakpan was a suburb of Benoni from 1914–1919, when it was granted municipal status. The Brakpan miners were involved in the miners' strike of 1922. The town has gradually lost its importance as a gold mining area as the surrounding mines suffered from low yield over high cost. Many British residents emigrated during the apartheid era leaving a vacuum in the town which was filled by mostly Afrikaner farmers who had lost interest in farming. Situated between Springs and Benoni, it forms part of the Ekurhuleni Metro.

Transport

Roads

Brakpan is mainly located along the N17 highway leading eastwards from

Boksburg Boksburg is a city on the East Rand of Gauteng province of South Africa. Gold was discovered in Boksburg in 1887. Boksburg was named after the State Secretary of the South African Republic, Willem Eduard Bok, W. Eduard Bok. The R29 (South A ...

and

to Springs and Secunda (102 km). In passing through Brakpan, the N17 gives access to the town via the exits at Heidelberg Road, Denne Road and Ergo Road. Running parallel to the N17, the R554 (Elsburg Road; Springs Road) leads south-westwards to Alberton – 34 km and eastwards to Springs. The

R23 R23 or R-23 may refer to: Military * R-23 (missile), a Soviet air-to-air missile * , a destroyer of the Royal Navy * Rikhter R-23, a Soviet aircraft autocannon * , a submarine of the United States Navy Roads * R23 road (Belgium) * R-23 regional ...

(Heidelberg Road) skirts Brakpan to the west, leading northwards to Benoni and southwards to

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

– 35 km. The M45 leads north-westwards to Benoni and southwards to KwaThema. The M46 leads westwards from Brakpan to Boksburg and eastwards to Springs. In passing through Brakpan, the M46 holds several names such as Airport Road, Athlone Avenue, Voortrekker Road, Prince George Avenue and Olympia Road. Voortrekker Road is the main street through the Brakpan CBD.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Ekurhuleni Mining communities in South Africa