Mayfair is a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

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 ...

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 suburb is west of the Johannesburg CBD and is adjacent to Fordsburg. It is located in Region F of the

City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality 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 ...

History

Prior to the discovery of gold on the

Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand (, ; ; locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, w ...

in 1886, the suburb lay on land on one of the original farms that make up

, called ''Langlaagte''. The land was purchased by J.B. Robinson. It was established as a suburb in 1896 and is named after

Mayfair Mayfair is an area of Westminster, London, England, in the City of Westminster. It is in Central London and part of the West End. It is between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane and one of the most expensive districts ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Demographics

Although designated a white area under

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 ...

, Indians began moving into Mayfair some time before the end of apartheid. Today Mayfair has a large Indian population, along with a significant number of

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

immigrants from the rest of Africa. In recent years Mayfair has become populated with a large number of Somalis and Ethiopians. Mayfair is populated by a diverse community economically and remains a vibrant part of Indian city life.

Notable residents

Former

President of South Africa The president of South Africa is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of South Africa. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the South African National Defence F ...

F. W. de Klerk Frederik Willem de Klerk ( , ; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as the seventh and final state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as Deputy President of South Africa, deputy president a ...

, the last to hold the office before the end of apartheid in 1994, was born here.

References

Johannesburg Region F {{Johannesburg-stub