History
It was established in the early days of the gold rush when two prospectors, John Jack from the farm of Germiston near Glasgow and August Simmer from Vacha in Germany, struck paydirt on the farm of Elandsfontein. Both men made fortunes and the town sprang up next to the mine. In 1921 the world's largest gold refinery, the Rand Refinery, was established at Germiston. Seventy percent of the Western World's gold passes through this refinery.
The WesBank Raceway motorsports facility was located in the city, but it was sold to industrial estate developers in November 2007. Germiston Stadium (formerly the Herman Immelman Stadium), home stadium of Moroka Swallows FC is also located in the city.

Architecture
The city has a number of historic buildings. Among these are the St Andrew's Presbyterian Church which was built in 1905, and St Boniface's Church designed by Sir Herbert Baker, which was built in 1910 (this is the second church on the site, as the Anglican Parish was founded in 1897).
The church also houses the historic 1910 English Romantic Norman and Beard Organ. The Alexander Hotel was also partly designed by Baker, using his traditional stone appearance, although this building has been allowed to decay over the last twenty years, with the stonework having been painted over.

Coordinates: 26,134 28,102

Although the area around Bedfordview had been inhabited by black natives for thousands of years, the written history of the area commenced with the arrival of white settlers in the 19th Century.
The site of Bedfordview was largely taken up by the farm Elandsfontein, and was administered as part of the District of Potchefstroom in the South African Republic. The coat-of-arms of Bedfordview features an Eland holding a fountain as a tribute to the early rural history of the town.
The Witwatersrand Gold Reef had a huge impact on the area. Elandsfontein was purchased for the mineral rights, and was later divided into smaller farms and small-holdings, many of which were settled by retired miners. The entire area became known as Geldenhuis Estates Smallholdings.

One of these farms was owned by Sir George Herbert Farrar, a randlord who played a prominent role in planning the infamous Jameson Raid, one of the main causes of the Second Anglo-Boer War. His farm, Bedford, was located in the present-day suburb of St Andrews, and parts of the original farm can still be seen in St Andrews' School. The farm itself was named after Sir Farrar's home-town of Bedford in England. Apparently the raid itself was planned in a small house close to the farm. Sir George is buried in Milner Ave, close to the school, the only official grave in the town.

During the war, British cavalry was based in Bedfordview and apparently planted the oak trees along Van Buuren Ave. There is also a legend that an Indian Rajah based with the unit died and was buried somewhere in Bedfordview in full regalia, including his jewel-encrusted sword.

The name "Bedfordview" came about as the result of a competition in 1926. A girl who won the competition thought there was a nice view from Bedford Farm. "Bedford View" (two words) was then registered. Over the years the name has contracted to one word. By 1932 the small-holding had developed into a small village. The 1st Bedfordview Scout Troop opened its doors on 26 July 1928, there was a government school and a post-office. However, there were major health concerns.
Bill Stuart, headmaster at the school recalled that sewage would run down Van Buuren Road from Malvern East and that the piggeries and other farms caused swarms of flies. There was talk that the area should become part of a municipality in order to deal with the matter, and residents were asked whether they would prefer to join Johannesburg or Germiston. Joining a municipality would mean rates and taxes though, so the residents elected instead to set up a health committee to sort out the problem. This later developed into the Bedfordview Village Council and then the Bedfordview Town Council.

Bedfordview was forced to join with Germiston and Palm Ridge to form the Transitional Council of Greater Germiston after democracy. This was in turn merged with other East-Rand towns to form the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Council, which incorporated the old municipalities of Alberton, Bedfordview, Benoni, Boksburg, Brakpan, Edenvale, Germiston, Kempton Park, Nigel, and Springs.

Coordinates: 26,1046 28,°810

Originally, Boksburg was laid out in 1887 to serve the surrounding gold mines, and named after the State Secretary of the South African Republic, Eduard Bok. The Main Reef Road linked Boksburg to all the other major mining towns on the Witwatersrand and the Angelo Hotel was used as a production post. A railway was built to link Boksburg to Johannesburg in 1890.
Boksburg lake made world news in 1989 when the newly elected Conservative Party municipality decided to fence off the lake and prohibit non-whites from using the facility.

Segregation policies were taken to such an extreme that when council granted transfer of lease of the Golden Lake Restaurant on the lake premises from S.Y Ho to another Chinese woman, S.Y Yip, it was with the provision that the new lease barred nonwhites-including Chinese, from dining there.[2] Controversy surrounding the safety of the lake was created when Councellor Stephanie Greyling made the following statement: “the lake is now safe…Boksburg Lake was like a second Chicago with more than a 100 murders in 18 months…”
However official figures were given as 27, and this included the number of people who died in the neighbouring Boksburg Benoni Hospital. Statistics released by the offices of the Minister of Law and Order listed only two murders at Boksburg Lake from November 1986 until November 1988”

As a result of the council’s policies, blacks boycotted the CBD, and commercial sales dropped 40% to 70%.[5] Also, The Lake became the focal point on the East Rand for violent racial clashes between Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) supporters and African National Congress (ANC) supporting Coloureds and Blacks from the neighbouring townships. The decision to re-introduce segregation at the facilities sparked off a local and international uproar, with local Coloured and Black residents initiating a yearlong boycott of shops in the CBD.

Bronkhorstspruit is a small farming town 50km east of Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa along the N4 highway towards Witbank. It lies on the border between the Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces.

Cultura Park, a suburb of Bronkhorstspruit, hosts the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere. The is the South African headquarters of the Humanistic Buddhist order,does a lot of community work, celebrates the Chinese New Year and is open to the public, who can book in for a weekend-long retreats.

In 1858, a group of Voortrekkers settled in the Bronkhorstspruit creek, which was originally called Kalkoenkransrivier ('turkey ridge river'). In June 1897, the South African Republic gave its approval for the town, then already named Bronkhorstspruit by locals.
In 1880 it was the scene of the action at Bronkhorstspruit, an important event in the early days of the First Boer War.
There is disagreement about where the town got its name from. Some believe it was named after the farmer JG Bronkhorst, while others say that it was named after a plant, the Bronkors, that grew in the region of the creek.