Pretoria

Pretoria, city in north-eastern South Africa, in Gauteng Province. The administrative capital of South Africa, Pretoria is one of three national capitals, along with Cape Town (the legislative capital) and Bloemfontein (the judicial capital). The city is situated on both banks of the Apies River and extends east into the foothills of the Magaliesberg mountain range. Pretoria is a major commercial, manufacturing, transport, and cultural centre. Most of the labour force works in administration and government-related services, but it also has a major iron and steel industry as well as engineering, food processing, ceramics, and chemical industries.

The modern city is spacious and well planned, containing large parks dotted with jacaranda trees for which the city is noted, and a number of landmarks commemorating its history. Pretoria is the site of several institutions of higher education, including the University of South Africa (2004), the University of Pretoria (1908), and Tshwane University of Technology (2004), as well as the State Library and government archives. Places of interest include the Union Buildings, designed by British architect Sir Herbert Baker; the Voortrekker Monument; the home of Paul Kruger, president of the South African Republic (the Transvaal) from 1883 to 1900; the Transvaal Museum, containing natural history displays; the Municipal Art Gallery, featuring South African art; the Pretoria Art Museum, with a collection of 17th-century Dutch art; the National Cultural History and Open-Air Museum, with a variety of collections; the Military Museum, which is located in Fort Schanskop (built 1867); and the National Zoological Gardens.

The settlement was established by Marthinus W. Pretorius in 1855 and named after his father, Andries W. J. Pretorius, the Boer soldier and statesman. It became the capital of the South African Republic in 1860. The Peace of Vereeniging, ending the South African War, was signed here in 1902. When the Union of South Africa was organized in 1910, Pretoria was designated the seat of its administration, a position it retained after the Republic of South Africa was formed in 1961.

In the 1950s the population of Pretoria had grown significantly and black townships (planned, segregated communities that are densely populated) such as Atteridgeville and Mamelodi had developed in the surrounding area. The end of apartheid (South Africa’s former system of racial segregation) in the early 1990s enabled a substantial increase in Pretoria’s black professional class, leading to some movement of blacks into formerly all-white residential areas. Population 1,209,000 (2003 estimate).