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Durban City Centre |
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Durban today |
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Today, Durban is the busiest container port in Africa, and a popular tourist destination. The Golden Mile, developed as a welcoming tourist destination in the 1970s, as well as Durban at large, provide ample tourist attractions, particularly for people on holiday from Johannesburg. It lost its international holiday pre-eminence to Cape Town in the 1990s, but remains more popular among domestic tourists. |
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Durban Harbour |
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Sea Transport |
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- Durban has a long tradition as a port city. The Port of Durban, which was formerly known as the Port of Natal, is one of the few natural harbours between Port Elizabeth and Maputo, and is also located at the beginning of a particular weather phenomenon which can cause extremely violent seas. These two features made Durban an extremely busy port of call for ship repairs when the port was opened in the 1840s. The Port of Durban is now the busiest port in South Africa, as well as the third busiest container port in the Southern Hemisphere.
- The modern Port of Durban grew around trade from Johannesburg, as the industrial and mining capital of South Africa is not located on any navigable body of water. Thus, products being shipped from Johannesburg outside of South Africa have to be loaded onto trucks or railways and transported to Durban. The Port of Maputo was unavailable for use until the early 1990s due to civil war and an embargo against South African products. There is now an intense rivalry between Durban and Maputo for shipping business.
- Salisbury Island, now joined to the mainland and part of the Port of Durban, was formerly a full naval base until it was downgraded in 2002. It now contains a naval station and other military facilities. The future of the base, however, is uncertain, as there is increasing demand to use Salisbury Island as part of the port facilities.
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About |
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- Durban is the third most populous city in South Africa, forming part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. It is the largest city in KwaZulu-Natal and is famous as the busiest port in Africa. It is also a major centre of tourism due to the city's warm subtropical climate and beaches.
- According to the 2007 Community Survey, the city has a population of almost 3.5 million. Durban's land area of 2,292 square kilometers (884.9 sq mi) is comparatively larger than other South African cities, resulting in a somewhat lower population density of 1,513 inhabitants per square kilometre.
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History |
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- It is thought that the first known inhabitants of the Durban area arrived from the north around 100,000 BC, according to carbon dating of rock art found in caves in the Drakensberg. These people were living in the central plains of KwaZulu-Natal until the expansion of Bantu people from the north sometime during the last millennium.
- Little is known of the history of the first residents, as there is no written history of the area before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who came to the KwaZulu-Natal coast while searching for a route from Europe to India. He landed on the KwaZulu-Natal coast on Christmas in 1497, and thus named the area "Natal", or Christmas in Portuguese.
- The modern city of Durban dates from 1824, when a party of 25 men under British Lieutenant F. G. Farewell arrived from the Cape Colony and established a settlement on the northern shore of the Bay of Natal, near today's Farewell Square. Accompanying Farewell was an adventurer named Henry Francis Fynn (1803-1861). Fynn was able to befriend the Zulu King Shaka by helping him to recover from a stab wound he suffered in battle. As a token of Shaka's gratitude, he granted Fynn a "25-mile strip of coast a hundred miles in depth.
- During a meeting of 35 white residents in Fynn's territory on June 23, 1835, it was decided to build a capital town and name it "d'Urban" after Sir Benjamin d'Urban, then governor of the Cape Colony.
- Voortrekkers established the Republic of Natalia in 1838 just north of Durban, and established a capital at Pietermaritzburg.
- Fierce conflict with the Zulu population led to the evacuation of Durban, and eventually the Afrikaners accepted British annexation in 1844 under military pressure.
- A British governor was appointed to the region and many settlers emigrated from Europe and the Cape Colony. The British established a sugar cane industry in the 1860s. Farm owners had a difficult time attracting Zulu labourers to work on their plantations, so the British brought thousands of indentured labourers from India on five-year contracts. As a result of the importation of Indian labourers, Durban became the largest Asian community in South Africa.
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Sahara Stadium Kingsmead |
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Suburbs of Durban |
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Durban is made up of the following suburbs:
Asherville, Berea, Bluff, Clare Estate, Durban North, Duff's Road, Greyville, Inanda-Glebe, Inanda-Newtown, KwaDinabukubo, KwaMashu, Mayville, Morningside, Ntuzuma, Newlands, Overport, Phoenix, Puntans Hill, Springfield, Sydenham, Yellowwood Park, Bellair, Cato Manor, Chatsworth, Glen Park, Glenwood, Hillary, Jacobs Ladder, Memorial Park, Merebank, Merewent, Montclair, Mount Vernon, Northdene, North Park, Poets Corner, Prospecton, Rossburgh, Sarnia, Seaview, Shallcross, Treasure Beach, Wentworth, Umhlatuzana, Umlazi, Umbilo, Woodhaven, Woodlands, Yellowwod Park, Amanzimtoti, Clansthal, Craigieburn, Isipingo, Isipingo Beach, Kingsborough, KwaMakuta, Lower Illovo, Lovu, Magabeni, Reunion, Umbogintweni, Umkomaas, Warner Beach & Widenham.
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