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South Africa: Pretoria City

2012/12/19

Pretoria is a city in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive (administrative) and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is divided into three sections: pretoria west, east and north. Pretoria is contained within the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality as of several constituent former administrations (part which as well Centurion and Soshanguve). Pretoria itself is sometimes referred to as "Tshwane" due to a long-running and controversial proposed change of name, which has from now on to be decided, as of 2012.

Pretoria is named after Andries Pretorius.Pretoria in South Africa is popularly known as The Jacaranda City due to the thousands of Jacaranda trees planted in its streets, parks and gardens.

Climate

The city has a moderately dry subtropical climate, specifically a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cwa), with long hot and rainy summers and short cool and dry winters. The average annual temperature is 18.7 °C (65.7 °F). This is rather high considering its relatively high altitude of about 1350 metres and is due mainly to its sheltered valley position, which acts as a heat trap and cuts it off from cool southerly and south-easterly air masses for much of the year. Rain is chiefly concentrated in the summer months, with drought conditions prevailing over the winter months, when frosts may be sharp. Snowfall is an extremely rare event; snowflakes were spotted in 1959, 1968 and 2012 in the city, but the city has never experienced an accumulation in its history. During a countrywide heatwave in November 2011, Pretoria experienced temperatures that reached 39 °C (102 °F), extraordinarily unusual for that time of the year.

Central Business District
The Central Business District (CBD) of Pretoria has been the traditional centre of government and commerce, although today a lot of corporate offices, small businesses, shops and government departments are situated in the sprawling suburbs of the city rather than the CBD. However to bring service delivery back to the people, various Government departments are returning to the CBD. National Departments with their Chief Office in the CBD include: Department of Health, Basic Education, Transport, Higher Education and Training, Sport and Recreation, Justice and Constitutional Development, Water and Environmental Affairs and the National Treasury.

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