Johannesburg:
Known as the gateway to Africa, Johannesburg is a city literally built on gold. Established in 1886 when gold was struck, the city has been rebuilt four times in the past century - it started as a tent town, worked up to a tin-shack settlement, a four-storey Edwardian settlement and finally graduated as a modern city of glass and concrete skyscrapers. It's one of the youngest major cities in the world and is a mélange of African cultures, and is quite possibly the most cosmopolitan city on the continent.
Johannesburg once again includes Soweto, which was a separate city from the late 1970s until the 1990s. Originally an acronym for "SOuth-WEstern TOwnships", Soweto originated as a collection of settlements on the outskirts of Johannesburg populated mostly by native African workers in the gold mining industry.
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