Delmas is a small maize farming town situated east of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. The town is located some 19 km north-east of Springs and 73 km south-east of

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

History

The town was laid out in 1907 on the farm ''Witklip'' (

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

for ''White Stone'') and has been administered by a town council since 1965. The name was given by the

Frenchman French people () are a nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France. The French people, especially the native speakers of langues d'oïl from nort ...

Frank Campbell Dumat, former owner of Witklip, after his grandfather's farm in France. He originally laid out the town with 192 residential stands, 48 4 ha small holdings and 138 ha of commonage but by 1909 the governments added a further 5,500 ha to the town. This would be divided into 85 small holdings of around 64 ha.

Geography

Communities

Bothibelong is a township 3 km north of Delmas. The name is derived from

Sotho Sotho may refer to: *Sotho people (or ''Basotho''), an African ethnic group principally resident in South Africa, Lesotho and southern Botswana *Sotho language (''Sesotho'' or ''Southern Sotho''), a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, an offi ...

and means 'protection'. A newer location is named Botleng, which means 'place of beauty' in Sotho.

Economy

Agriculture

The farms in the region produce

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es and

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

s. AFGRI runs a chicken abattoir in the town.

Sports

Golf

The Delmas Golf Club is a nine-hole golf course that opened in 1960.

Motorsports

Red Star Raceway
is located approximately 15 km (9.2 mi) outside of Delmas, to the North East of the town centre. Opened in 2010, the 4 km (2.4 mi) long circuit was initially designed to house motorcycles but later opened the facilities to cars. Originally developed by the owner, Jaques van Wyngaardt, in conjunction with Andy Farmer and Kevin Owen, the circuit can be run either clockwise or anticlockwise and features a shorter, "Club" circuit, bypassing several of the long circuit's corners. The facility offers a skid pan, recreational facilities as well as overnight accommodation, conference halls and ablution facilities. In 2022, construction started on a new filling station and convenience store to service both visitors to the track and travellers on the N12 freeway.

Infrastructure

Transportation

Delmas is an important railway junction on the Springs to

eMalahleni Witbank (), officially eMalahleni, is a city situated on the Highveld of Mpumalanga, South Africa, within the Emalahleni Local Municipality. The name Witbank is Afrikaans for "white ridge", and is named after a white sandstone outcrop where wago ...

rail-line, a line that connects to the

Port of Richards Bay The Port of Richards Bay is located in Richards Bay harbour on the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa, and contains the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) which is the largest coal export facility in Africa. Although originally built to handle c ...

Roads

The town is connected by two main roads, the R555 and the R50. The R50 north connects the town to the N12 freeway junction which links

to Witbank while the road continues north to

. The R50 south connects the town to

Standerton Standerton is a large commercial and agricultural town lying on the banks of the Vaal River in Mpumalanga, South Africa, which specialises in cattle, dairy, maize and poultry farming. The town was established in 1876 and named after Boer leader Co ...

References

Populated places in the Victor Khanye Local Municipality Populated places established in 1907 {{Mpumalanga-geo-stub