Sydenham, Johannesburg
Place in Gauteng, South Africa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sydenham is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region E of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The suburb is surrounded by the area of Orchards, Orange Grove and other smaller suburbs.
Sydenham | |
|---|---|
  Sydenham Location within Gauteng  Sydenham Location within South Africa | |
| Coordinates: 26.153°S 28.092°E | |
| Country | South Africa |
| Province | Gauteng |
| Municipality | City of Johannesburg |
| Main Place | Johannesburg |
| Established | 1905 |
| Area | |
• Total | 1.17 km2 (0.45 sq mi) |
| Population (2011)[1] | |
• Total | 3,368 |
| • Density | 2,880/km2 (7,460/sq mi) |
| Racial makeup (2011) | |
| • Black African | 29.3% |
| • Coloured | 1.3% |
| • Indian/Asian | 1.5% |
| • White | 65.9% |
| • Other | 2.0% |
| First languages (2011) | |
| • English | 69.1% |
| • Zulu | 6.9% |
| • Northern Sotho | 5.3% |
| • Afrikaans | 4.4% |
| • Other | 14.3% |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (SAST) |
| Postal code (street) | 2192 |
History
The suburb was surveyed for housing in 1905.[2]: 162 The suburb's name comes from the name of the farm which originated sometime before the mid-1890s.[3]: 304 In 1910, Sydenham was still quite rural and on 26 February of that year, the land was used by Frenchman Albert Kimmerling to fly a Voisin biplane a few hundred yards and proved that aircraft could be flown at a high altitude of 2,000 m (6,600 ft).[4]: 255
It has historically been a centre for Johannesburg's Jewish community, who followed the "tenement trail" to the northeast from more central areas of the city.[5] In 1971, Jews made up 55.9% of the resident population.[6]
In 1991, Sydenham was subject to the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act, 1991. This abolished the Group Areas Act, in place since the 1950s, and classes Sydenham as a "whites only" area throughout most of the apartheid era.
