Kempton Park is a city in the

East Rand The East Rand is a major urban area located in the Gauteng province of South Africa. It is the urban eastern part of Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation. The region extends from Alberton in the west to ...

region of

Gauteng province Gauteng ( , ; Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only 1.5% of the coun ...

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 ...

. It is part of the

City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality The City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (; ; ; ) is a metropolitan municipality that forms the local government of the East Rand region of Gauteng, a large suburban region east of Johannesburg. ''Ekurhuleni'' means "place of peace" in Xi ...

. It is situated south of

Thembisa Thembisa, formerly Tembisa, is a large township situated to the north of Kempton Park on the East Rand, Gauteng, South Africa. It was established in 1957 when black people were resettled from Alexandra and other areas in Edenvale, Kempton Park, ...

, one of the largest

townships A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in South Africa, which is also part of Ekurhuleni. South Africa's busiest airport,

O. R. Tambo International Airport O. R. Tambo International Airport is an international airport serving the twin cities of Johannesburg and the main capital of South Africa, Pretoria. It is situated in Kempton Park, Gauteng, Kempton Park, Gauteng. It serves as the primary air ...

is located in Kempton Park. The name of the city is sometimes written as "Kemptonpark" in

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 ...

History

Kempton Park lies on what were two

Boer Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...

farms in the

South African Republic The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republics, Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result ...

(ZAR). The first farm was ''Zuurfontein No 369'' with the title deed issued to Johannes Stephanus Marais on 25 October 1859 and surveyed to be 3000

morgen A Morgen (Mg) is a historical, but still occasionally used, German unit of area used in agriculture. Officially, it is no longer in use, having been supplanted by the hectare. While today it is approximately equivalent to the Prussian ''morgen' ...

on 12 December 1859. The second farm northwest of the first was registered to Cornelius Johannes Beukes in March 1865 and was called ''Rietfontein 32 IR''. After the discovery of gold in Johannesburg, 22 km southwest of the farms in 1886, a railway connecting

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 ...

Vereeniging Vereeniging ( ; ) is a city located in the south of Gauteng province, South Africa, situated where the Klip River empties into the northern loop of the Vaal River. It is also one of the constituent parts of the Vaal Triangle region and was forme ...

and to the Cape line was constructed in the early 1890s. The railway line did not go through

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 ...

, but passed to the east through the two farms with a station called ''Zuurfontein'', which would be linked by a side-rail to the ''Zuid-Afrikaansche Fabrieken voor Ontplofbare Stoffen'', a dynamite factory a few kilometres north west. The city was established on 24 August 1903 when Karl Friedrich Wolff sub-divided a portion of his Zuurfontein farm into 216 residential stands and named the new town

Kempten Kempten (; ) is the largest town of Allgäu, in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. The population was about 68,000 in 2016. The area was possibly settled originally by Celts, but was later taken over by the Romans, who called the town ''Cambodunum''. K ...

after the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

town in

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

of his birth. The name was

anglicised Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

into Kempton Park. JNB-MRU 22

(Africa's busiest airport) is located in Kempton Park. In 1952, the airport, then known as Jan Smuts International Airport, was built on land next to the community, and opened in 1953. The airport's name was changed to Johannesburg International Airport in the late 1990s and then to OR Tambo International Airport in 2006. Kempton Park has been part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since 2000.

Storming of the Kempton Park World Trade Centre

The

storming of Kempton Park World Trade Centre The storming of the Kempton Park World Trade Centre took place in South Africa on 25 June 1993 when approximately three thousand members of the Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF), Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and other Right-wing politics, righ ...

took place on 25 June 1993 when approximately three thousand members of the Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF),

Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging The (, meaning 'Afrikaner Resistance Movement'), commonly known by its abbreviation AWB (), is an Afrikaner nationalism, Afrikaner nationalist, white supremacist, and Neo-Nazism, neo-Nazi political party in South Africa. Founded in 1973 by Eug ...

(AWB) and other paramilitary White Nationalist Afrikaner groups stormed the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park. At the time of the attack, the World Trade Centre was the venue for multi-party CODESA negotiations to end the

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

system through the country's first multi-racial elections. These negotiations were strongly opposed by some White groups in South Africa.

Geography

Kempton Park lies in the westernmost part of the

and the

City of Ekurhuleni The City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (; ; ; ) is a metropolitan municipality that forms the local government of the East Rand region of Gauteng, a large suburban region east of Johannesburg. ''Ekurhuleni'' means "place of peace" in Xi ...

, bordering with the

City of Johannesburg The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality () is a metropolitan municipality that manages the local governance of Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. It is divided into several branches and departments in order to expedite se ...

to the west. The city is positioned on the

urban fringe Peri-urbanisation relates to the processes of scattered and dispersive urban growth that create hybrid landscapes of fragmented and mixed urban and rural characteristics. Such areas may be referred to as the rural–urban fringe, the outskirts ...

of the

Greater Johannesburg The term Greater Johannesburg may refer to: * The area governed by the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality#Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council, Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council (GJMC) from 1995 to 2000. * The current City ...

metropolitan area abutting semi-rural

smallholding A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technolo ...

s and the rural countryside to its north-east. As a result of its integration into the

conurbation A conurbation is a region consisting of a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most ...

, the boundaries of Kempton Park are now contiguous with

to the north,

Boksburg Boksburg is a city on the East Rand of Gauteng province of South Africa. Gold was discovered in Boksburg in 1887. Boksburg was named after the State Secretary of the South African Republic, Willem Eduard Bok, W. Eduard Bok. The R29 (South A ...

to the south,

Midrand Midrand is a town in central Gauteng, South Africa. It is situated in-between Centurion, Gauteng, Centurion and Sandton. Formerly an independent municipality, Midrand now forms part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. History ...

to the north-west,

Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions as the m ...

and Edenvale to the south-west,

Benoni Benoni may refer to: Places * Benoni, Gauteng, a town in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, in the East Rand region of Gauteng province in South Africa * Benoni, a barangay in Mahinog, Camiguin, Philippines People * Benoni (given name), a ...

to the east and Modderfontein to the west.

Communities

Kempton Park was declared a city in 1992 and has the following suburbs: * Allen Grove *

Aston Manor Aston Manor was a local government district of Warwickshire, England in what is now northern Birmingham, in the West Midlands, from the 19th century to 1911, when it was added to Birmingham. The Aston Manor Local Board of Health was formed in 1 ...

* Birch Acres * Birchleigh * Birchleigh North *

Bonaero Park Bonaero Park is a southeastern suburb of Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni, in Gauteng province, South Africa. It lies directly next to OR Tambo International Airport, the busiest airport in Africa. Bonaero Park was built in the 1960s to house employees f ...

* Bredell *

Cresslawn Cresslawn is a suburb of Kempton Park, in Gauteng province, 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 a ...

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

Edleen Edleen is a suburb in western Kempton Park, in Gauteng province, South Africa. History The suburb lies on part of an old Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand (, ; ; locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in So ...

* Esselen Park *

Esther Park Esther Park, also spelt Estherpark, is a suburb of Kempton Park, Gauteng, Kempton Park, in Gauteng province, South Africa. It is west of the city centre. References

Suburbs of Kempton Park, Gauteng {{Gauteng-geo-stub ...

* Glen Marais *

Isando Isando is a town in Ekurhuleni in the Gauteng province of South Africa. It is also the name of the medical cannabis flower produced by MedCan. History Industrial township south-west of Kempton Park, 22 km east of Johannesburg Johann ...

* Kempton Park West * Nimrod Park *

Norkem Park Norkem Park is a suburb in northern Kempton Park, in Gauteng province, 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 ...

* Pomona *

Rhodesfield Rhodesfield is a suburb central to Kempton Park, in Gauteng province, South Africa, just south of the CBD. It houses the last station on the Gautrain route to OR Tambo International Airport from Sandton. Rail service Rhodesfield is one of the t ...

Spartan Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the valley of Evrotas river in Laconia, in southeastern Pe ...

Terenure Terenure (), originally called ''Roundtown'', is a middle class suburb of Dublin in Ireland. It is located in the city's D6 and D6W postal districts. The population of all electoral divisions labelled as Terenure was 17,972 as of the 2022 ce ...

Van Riebeeck Park Van Riebeeck Park is a residential suburb of Kempton Park, Gauteng, South Africa. History Named in 1952, it obtained its name after the tercentennial anniversary of the landing of Jan van Riebeeck Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck (21 A ...

Demographics

In the census of 2011, the population of Kempton Park consisted of 171,575 people living in 53,777 households. 47% of the people described themselves as "

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

", 46% as "

Black African Black is a racial classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and ofte ...

" and 2% as "

Coloured Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...

". 35% spoke

as their

first language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...

and 26% spoke

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

Economy

is a large industrial zone which houses many chemical manufacturing and other industrial sites. North-west of Kempton Park lies the heavy industry suburb of Modderfontein with one of the main companies there, the

AECI Aeci (or Aetius) (died 1010), Bishop of Barcelona from 995, was a warrior-prelate in the age of the Peace and Truce of God. Besides military endeavours, mainly ''reconquista'' (the re-conquest of Islamic territory), his episcopate was taken up wit ...

Dynamite factory. Kempton Park also has a large coal power station named Kelvin power station which supplies power to the

. The Emperor's Palace Casino is also located in Kempton Park, just south of the airport. The international airport plays a dominant role in the local economy. Several airline and other aviation related companies are headquartered in Kempton Park.

South African Airways South African Airways (SAA) is the flag carrier of South Africa. Founded in 1929 as Union Airways it later rebranded to South African Airways in 1934, the airline is headquartered in Airways Park at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannes ...

, the flag carrier of South Africa, and subsidiary

South African Express South African Express Airways SOC Ltd, known as South African Express or simply SA Express, was a state-owned airline based in South Africa that started operations on 24 April 1994, but had to cease operations on 28 April 2020. Although the ai ...

have their head offices in Kempton Park.

Mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree '' Mangifera indica''. It originated from the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South and Southeast As ...

, a low cost airline, is headquartered on the grounds of OR Tambo.

Federal Air Federal Air (incorporating Pelican Air Services) is an airline headquartered at O. R. Tambo International Airport near Johannesburg, South Africa. It operates air shuttle, scheduled and charter services throughout Africa for business and tour ...

has its headquarters on the OR Tambo grounds. 1time had its head office in the Isando Industrial Park.

Safair Safair is an airline based at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, South Africa. It operates one of the world's largest fleets of civil Lockheed L-100 Hercules cargo aircraft.

's head office is in Kempton Park.

Education

The city has ten major schools: * Hoërskool Jeugland, Hoërskool Kempton Park, Rhodesfield High School, Hoërskool Birchleigh, Norkem Park High, Sir Pierre van Ryneveld, Shangri-La Academy, Sonrise Christian School, Cresslawn Primary School, and Maranatha Christian School.

Sport and recreation

The Kempton Park Golf Course, first designed in 1965, in Spartan, is known as the club where

Ernie Els Theodore Ernest Els (; born 17 October 1969) is a South African professional golfer. A former , he is nicknamed "the Big Easy" due to his physical stature along with his fluid golf swing. Among his more than 70 career victories are four major ...

learnt how to play golf.

Transportation

Gautrain

The suburb of

just south of the city centre has got a station on the

Gautrain Gautrain is an Higher-speed rail, higher-speed Express train, express commuter rail system in Gauteng, South Africa, which links Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kempton Park, Gauteng, Kempton Park and O. R. Tambo International Airport. It takes 15 minu ...

rail, named the Rhodesfield station.Gautrain route map
''Gautrain'' Retrieved 2 June 2010 The

has the eastern terminus of the Gautrain rail at the OR Tambo station. The highspeed Gautrain Rail links the airport as well as Rhodesfield with the Sandton station in the west. This section from OR Tambo to Sandton opened on 8 June 2010, in time for the

2010 FIFA World Cup The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. ...

. From Sandton, the railway connects either north to

Centurion In the Roman army during classical antiquity, a centurion (; , . ; , or ), was a commander, nominally of a century (), a military unit originally consisting of 100 legionaries. The size of the century changed over time; from the 1st century BC ...

and

or south to Rosebank and

Road

The

R21 R21, R-21 or R.21 may refer to: Military * R-21 (missile), a Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile * , an aircraft carrier of the Royal Australian Navy * , a destroyer of the Royal Navy * , a submarine of the United States Navy * Roads ...

is the major

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...

that runs through Kempton Park. It enters the city from

in the south, bypassing the O.R. Tambo International Airport and Kempton Park CBD before heading north towards

. There are 2 offramps into Kempton Park being Voortrekker Road / Air Freight and Pomona Road which gives closer access to the Glen Marais and Bonaero Park suburbs. The R24 (Albertina Sisulu Freeway) is a freeway in the south of the city starting at an interchange with the R21 at the O.R. Tambo International Airport, and continues south-west towards Edenvale and

. The R25 crosses Kempton Park’s northern suburbs from north-east to south-west linking the city with

Bapsfontein Bapsfontein is a farming town in Ekurhuleni, 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 t ...

and

Bronkhorstspruit Bronkhorstspruit is a town 50 km east of Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa along the N4 highway towards eMalahleni. It also includes three townships called Zithobeni, Rethabiseng and Ekangala. On 18 May 2011, the Tshwane Metropolitan Munic ...

to the north-east and Johannesburg to the south-west. Kempton Park is also served by a number of metropolitan routes linking it to surrounding towns and cities in the

(

). The

M16 The M16 (officially Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of assault rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-round magazine. In 1964, th ...

links Kempton Park with Edenvale to the south-west. The M32 links Kempton Park with

to the east. The M43 links Kempton Park with Boksburg to the south. The M45 links Kempton Park with Benoni to the east. The M57 links Kempton Park with

and

Olifantsfontein Olifantsfontein, also known as Clayville, is a small town on the East Rand in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. It is located at the north-western corner of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, just north of the Thembisa township. ...

to the north, Boksburg to the south and

to the south-west. The M59 passes in-between Kempton Park and Edenvale. The M99 links Kempton Park with

Bedfordview Bedfordview is an affluent suburb in western Ekurhuleni, sharing an administrative boundary with the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Gauteng, South Africa. Bedfordview has been part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalit ...

and Germiston to the south-west. The M39 connects Kempton Park with

to the north-west and Germiston to the south. Kempton Park is also served internally by metropolitan routes including the M84, M88, M89,

M90 M90 or M-90 may refer to: Military * M90 (camouflage), a camouflage pattern used by the Swedish armed forces * Zastava M90, a Yugoslav modern assault rifle * Sanomalaite M/90, a Finnish communications device Transportation * Lotus M90, a concept c ...

, M91, M92 and M96.

Notable People

André Stander was a police officer in Kempton Park CID from 1963 to 1980, before being jailed for bank robberies.

References

External links

Google Map
{{Authority control East Rand Populated places in Ekurhuleni