The Vaal Triangle is a triangular area formed by

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 ...

Vanderbijlpark Vanderbijlpark is an industrial city with approximately 95,000 inhabitants, situated on the Vaal River in the south of Gauteng province, South Africa. The city is named after Hendrik van der Bijl, an electrical engineer and industrialist. V ...

and Sasolburg about 60 km south 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 ...

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 area forms a substantial urban complex. Meyerton, just north of Vereeniging, is also sometimes included in the complex, and residents of

Sharpeville Sharpeville (also spelled Sharpville) is a township situated between two large industrial cities, Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging, in southern Gauteng, South Africa. Sharpeville is one of the oldest of six townships in the Vaal Triangle. It was ...

Boipatong Boipatong is a township in Gauteng, South Africa. It was established in 1955 to house black residents who worked in Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging. Boipatong means "the place of hiding" in the Sesotho language. Boipatong's expansion took place ...

, Bophelong, the greater

Sebokeng Sebokeng () locally called Zweni by residents, is a middle-class township in the Emfuleni Local Municipality in southern Gauteng, South Africa near the industrial cities of Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging. Other neighboring townships include Ev ...

area (including

Evaton Evaton is a township north of Sebokeng, that's divided into three; Evaton Central, Evaton West (popularly known as "Mkhelele") and Evaton North, in the Emfuleni Local Municipality of Gauteng, South Africa. It was established in 1904. Like other ...

), Three Rivers,

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

and Deneysville also generally tend to consider themselves to live in the Vaal Triangle. The area straddles the

Vaal River The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Oce ...

and is a major industrial region, which is home to former Iron and Steel Corporation Iscor, now ArcelorMittal South Africa, and

Sasol Sasol Limited, commonly referred to as Sasol, is an integrated energy and chemical company based in Sandton, South Africa. The company was formed in 1950 in Sasolburg, South Africa, and built around coal liquefaction processes that German ...

, respectively the

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

and

petrochemical Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable s ...

processing facilities.

Pollution

Due to the heavy industries in and around the Vaal Triangle it has become infamous for its

air pollution Air pollution is the presence of substances in the Atmosphere of Earth, air that are harmful to humans, other living beings or the environment. Pollutants can be Gas, gases like Ground-level ozone, ozone or nitrogen oxides or small particles li ...

and

respiratory disease Respiratory diseases, or lung diseases, are pathological conditions affecting the organs and tissues that make gas exchange difficult in air-breathing animals. They include conditions of the respiratory tract including the trachea, bronchi, ...

. According to an analysis by OpenAQ, the area regularly registers the highest concentration of PM2.5 particulate pollution worldwide. In 2013, research by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) revealed that areas in the Vaal Triangle have persistently higher concentrations of air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, than in the rest of South Africa. For this reason, local

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 ...

speaking people often refer to the region as the ''Vuil Driehoek'' (meaning ''Dirty Triangle'') as a pun on ''Vaal Driehoek'' (the Afrikaans translation for Vaal Triangle).

Tourism and recreation

Nearby is the Vaal Dam, from which the massive PWV megalopolis (

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 ...

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 ...

and

) draws its water. The PWV forms the urban heart 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 ...

. The Witwatersrand is the name given to the area that comprises the Greater Johannesburg metropole and the gold-bearing reef along which

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

was discovered in 1886. The Vaal Dam is well-patronised by people from Johannesburg over the weekends and during holidays, as it provides extensive water recreation facilities some 70 km south of the city.

References

External links

Vaal Triangle University Campus - North-West University
{{Gauteng-geo-stub Geography of Gauteng