Current Time in Roodepoort, South Africa

Roodepoort is a city in Gauteng province, South Africa, lying on the western side of the Johannesburg metropolitan area. It occupies rising ground along the Witwatersrand ridge, with the Witpoortjie and Kloofendal outcrops giving it a rockier, greener setting than much of the region. Since 2000 it has formed part of the City of Johannesburg, but it retains a strong identity of its own and its own commercial centre.

Around three hundred and fifty thousand people live in the area covered by the old municipality, and the wider western suburbs hold considerably more. Its importance has shifted over time from mining to services, retail and light industry, and it now functions as a busy residential and business district serving the western half of greater Johannesburg.

The name, meaning red pass in Afrikaans, comes from a farm established here in the 1880s. In 1884 the Struben brothers found gold at the Confidence Reef on this farm, a discovery that came shortly before the main Witwatersrand strike and helped set off the gold rush that created Johannesburg. Roodepoort grew as a mining town of shafts, headgear and compounds, and it was here that Mahatma Gandhi's Tolstoy Farm was established nearby in 1910 as a settlement for passive resisters. The town merged with neighbouring Maraisburg and Florida to form a single municipality, and the surrounding township of Dobsonville, established under apartheid, became part of the wider urban fabric.

The finest attraction is the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden, laid out around the Witpoortjie waterfall where the Crocodile River drops over a cliff. A pair of Verreaux's eagles has nested on the rock face for decades and is watched by visitors from the garden paths, which lead through indigenous highveld vegetation. Florida Lake, with its boating and birdlife, is a long-standing local favourite, and the Roodepoort Theatre has hosted international choral competitions that gave the city a reputation in the music world. Large shopping centres such as Clearwater Mall serve the whole western region, and the Cradle of Humankind, with its fossil-bearing caves at Sterkfontein, lies just beyond the city limits.

Cultural life is varied, mixing long-established Afrikaans and English-speaking communities with residents from across South Africa and from elsewhere in the continent. Church choirs, gospel music, community theatre and sports clubs are central to social life, and the mining museum at Kloofendal, where the original gold reef can still be seen, keeps the founding story alive.

Transport relies on the N1 highway and the busy road links towards Johannesburg and Krugersdorp, with commuter rail services and extensive minibus taxi networks. OR Tambo International Airport is about an hour away across the metropolitan area, and Lanseria Airport is considerably closer.

Education is served by schools, technical colleges and campuses of private and distance-learning universities, while students commonly travel to the University of Johannesburg or Wits.

Roodepoort is important as the place where Witwatersrand gold was first proved, and it offers visitors a waterfall, eagles and fossil caves within minutes of one of Africa's largest cities.