Somerset West, South Africa
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Somerset West, South Africa
Somerset West ( af, Somerset-Wes) is a town in the Western Cape, South Africa. Organisationally and administratively it is included in the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality as a suburb of the Helderberg region (formerly called Hottentots Holland). The vehicle registration code for Somerset West is ''CFM'' and the post code is 7130 for street addresses, and 7129 for post office boxes. History A cattle post was established here by Dutch soldiers in 1672. A town developed around the Lourens River (originally "Tweederivier", which means "Second River"; "Eersterivier", meaning "First River" passes through Stellenbosch, some to the north) and the farm of Vergelegen (Dutch: "remotely situated"), an 18th-century farmhouse built in the historic Cape Dutch style by Willem Adriaan van der Stel, governor of the Cape and son of Simon van der Stel, who gave his name to the nearby town of Stellenbosch. Willem Adriaan was later sent back to Holland after being charged wi ...
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Steenbras Dam
The Steenbras Dam ("STEE-un bruss"), now referred to as Steenbras Lower Dam, is a gravity concrete arch type dam located in the Hottentots-Holland mountains, above Gordons Bay, near Cape Town in South Africa. It is one of the six large dams that make up the Western Cape Water Supply System. It is owned by the City of Cape Town and serves principally to supply water to that city. The dam wall is high and long; it impounds a reservoir of over a surface area of when full. In 1916 a Board of Engineers was appointed to report on a water augmentation scheme for the City of Cape Town. Their proposal was the Steenbras scheme which would consist of a concrete gravity and arch dam on the Steenbras River. This dam would be connected to the Molteno reservoir through a tunnel in the Hottentots Holland mountains and a 64 kilometre long cast iron pipeline. Work began on the scheme in 1918 and was completed three years later. The Steenbras scheme could supply Cape Town with up to 42 million ...
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Xhosa Language
Xhosa (, ) also isiXhosa as an endonym, is a Nguni language and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 8.2 million people and by another 11 million as a second language in South Africa, mostly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng. It has perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants in a Bantu language (approximately tied with Yeyi), with one count finding that 10% of basic vocabulary items contained a click. Classification Xhosa is part of the branch of Nguni languages, which also include Zulu, Southern Ndebele and Northern Ndebele. Nguni languages effectively form a dialect continuum of variously mutually intelligible varieties. Xhosa is, to some extent, mutually intelligible with Zulu and with other Nguni languages to a lesser extent. Nguni languages are, in turn, classified under the much larger abstraction of Bantu languages. Geographical distribution ...
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Anglo American Plc
Anglo American plc is a British listed multinational mining company with headquarters in London, England. It is the world's largest producer of platinum, with around 40% of world output, as well as being a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore and steelmaking coal. The company has operations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. Anglo American has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The company has a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Anglo American was ranked as the 274th -largest public company in the world. History 1917–1990 Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, a Jewish German émigré, founded the Anglo American Corporation (AAC) in 1917 in Johannesburg, South Africa, with financial backing from the American bank J.P. Morgan & Co. and £1 million raised from UK and US sources to start the gold mining company; this fact is refle ...
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Simon Van Der Stel
Simon van der Stel (14 October 1639 – 24 June 1712) was the last commander and first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony, the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. Background Simon was the son of Adriaan van der Steland Maria Lievens, an official of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Adriaan was appointed the first Dutch governor of Mauritius in 1639. Simon was born at sea while his father was en route to Mauritius to take up his new posting. Adriaan had a long tenure in Mauritius, and Simon spent seven years there. His mother was Maria Lievens, daughter of a freed Indian slave woman known as Monica of the Coast of Goa, or Monica da Costa. Adriaan's governorship ended after five years, and after a few more years, Adriaan left Mauritius for Dutch Ceylon. Adriaan was murdered in Ceylon and Maria also died. Simon went on to Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies, where he remained until he was 20 years old. Career He then went to the United Provinces, where ...
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Willem Adriaan Van Der Stel
Willem () is a Dutch and West FrisianRienk de Haan, ''Fryske Foarnammen'', Leeuwarden, 2002 (Friese Pers Boekerij), , p. 158. masculine given name. The name is Germanic, and can be seen as the Dutch equivalent of the name William in English, Guillaume in French, Guilherme in Portuguese, Guillermo in Spanish and Wilhelm in German. Nicknames that are derived from Willem are Jelle, Pim, Willie, Willy and Wim. Given name *Willem Cody (2007-Present), Active Serbian terrorist, Leader of the Serbian World Republic, Intolerably based * Willem I (1772–1843), King of the Netherlands * Willem II (1792–1849), King of the Netherlands * Willem III (1817–1890), King of the Netherlands * Willem of the Netherlands (1840–1879), Dutch prince *Willem-Alexander (b. 1967), King of the Netherlands *Willem Aantjes (b. 1923), Dutch politician *Willem Adelaar (b. 1948), Dutch linguist *Willem Andriessen (1887–1964), Dutch pianist and composer *Willem Arondeus (1894–1943), Dutch artist and a ...
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Cape Dutch Architecture
Cape Dutch architecture is an architectural style found mostly in the Western Cape of South Africa, but modern examples of the style have also been exported as far afield as Western Australia and New Zealand, typically on wine estates. The style was prominent in the early days (17th century) of the Cape Colony, and the name derives from the initial settlers of the Cape being primarily Dutch. The style has roots in medieval Netherlands, Germany, France and Indonesia. Architectural features Houses in this style have a distinctive and recognizable design, with a prominent feature being the grand, ornately rounded clock gables, reminiscent of features in townhouses of Amsterdam built in the Dutch style. Whilst this feature is probably the most recognizable, it is ''not'' a defining feature of the style. The manor house on the "Uitkyk" Wine Estate, Stellenbosch, for example does not have a gable at all, but remains clearly in the Cape Dutch Style. In the late 18th century, Georgian ...
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Vergelegen
Vergelegen (Dutch: "remotely situated") is a historic wine estate in Somerset West, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Foundation The estate was settled in 1700 by an early Governor of the Cape, Willem Adriaan van der Stel. Van der Stel used the resources of his employer, the Dutch East India Company, to improve the estate, and in 1706 a number of free burghers at the Cape drew up a formal memorandum complaining about van der Stel's illegal activities. This memorandum contains some of the earliest images and descriptions of the estate. As a consequence of the free burghers' complaints, van der Stel and other officials were sacked, and three-quarters of the original Vergelegen estate was sold off, drastically reducing the size of the property. Vineyards In 1798 the estate was sold to the Theunissen family, who planted extensive vineyards and concentrated on the production of grapes until an infestation by the phylloxera louse in the late nineteenth century wiped out ...
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Stellenbosch
Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer.
Thomas Baldwin, 1852. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co.
A Grammar of Afrikaans.
Bruce C. Donaldson. 1993. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, situated about east of Cape Town, along the banks of the Eerste River at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain. The town became known as the City of Oaks or ''Eikestad'' in Afrikaans and Dutch language, Dutch due to the large number of oak trees that were planted by its founder, Simon van der S ...
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Somerset West 1909
( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_lieutenant_name = Mohammed Saddiq , high_sheriff_office =High Sheriff of Somerset , high_sheriff_name = Mrs Mary-Clare Rodwell (2020–21) , area_total_km2 = 4171 , area_total_rank = 7th , ethnicity = 98.5% White , county_council = , unitary_council = , government = , joint_committees = , admin_hq = Taunton , area_council_km2 = 3451 , area_council_rank = 10th , iso_code = GB-SOM , ons_code = 40 , gss_code = , nuts_code = UKK23 , districts_map = , districts_list = County council area: , MPs = *Rebecca Pow (C) * Wera Hobhouse ( LD) * Liam Fox (C) * David Warburton (C) * Marcus Fysh (C) * Ian Liddell-Grainger (C) * James Heappey (C) * Jacob Rees-Mogg (C) * John Penrose (C) , police = Avon and Somerset Police , websi ...
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Metropolitan Municipality (South Africa)
In South Africa, a metropolitan municipality or Category A municipality is a municipality which executes all the functions of local government for a city or conurbation. This is by contrast to areas which are primarily rural, where the local government is divided into district municipalities and local municipalities. The Constitution, section 155.1.a, defines "Category A" municipalities. In the Municipal Structures Act it is laid out that this type of local government is to be used for conurbations, "centre of economic activity", areas "for which integrated development planning is desirable", and areas with "strong interdependent social and economic linkages". The metropolitan municipality is similar to the consolidated city-county in the US, although a South African metropolitan municipality is created by notice of the provincial government, not by agreement between district and local municipalities. History Metropolitan municipalities were brought about during reforms of ...
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City Of Cape Town
The City of Cape Town ( af, Stad Kaapstad; xh, IsiXeko saseKapa) is the metropolitan municipality which governs the city of Cape Town, South Africa and its suburbs and exurbs. As of the 2011 census, it had a population of 3,740,026. The remote Prince Edward Islands are deemed to be part of the City of Cape Town, specifically of ward 115. Cllr. Ian McMahon is the current ward councilor of ward 115. History Cape Town first received local self-government in 1839, with the promulgation of a municipal ordinance by the government of the Cape Colony. When it was created, the Cape Town municipality governed only the central part of the city known as the City Bowl, and as the city expanded, new suburbs became new municipalities, until by 1902 there were 10 separate municipalities in the Cape Peninsula. During the 20th century, many of the inner suburban municipalities became unsustainable; in 1913 the first major unification took place when the municipalities of Cape Town, Green Po ...
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Telephone Numbers In South Africa
South Africa switched to a closed numbering system effective 16 January 2007. At that time, it became mandatory to dial the full 10-digit telephone number, including the zero in the three-digit area code, for local calls (e.g., 011 must be dialed from within Johannesburg). Area codes within the system are generally organized geographically. All telephone numbers are 9 digits long (but always prefixed by 0 for calls within South Africa), except for certain Telkom special services. When dialed from another country, the "0" is omitted and replaced with the appropriate international access code and the country code +27. Background History Numbers were allocated when South Africa had only four provinces, meaning that ranges are now split across the current nine provinces. South-West Africa (including Walvis Bay) was integrated into the South African numbering plan. However, the territory had already been allocated its own country code by the International Telecommunication U ...
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