Nelson Mandela Municipality
Encyclopedia
Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is one of six Metropolitan
Metropolitan municipality (South Africa)
In South Africa, a metropolitan municipality or Category A municipality is a municipality which executes all the functions of local government for a city or conurbation...
(or Category A) municipalities in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. It is located on the shores of Algoa Bay
Algoa Bay
Algoa Bay is a wide inlet along the South African east coast, some 425 miles east of the Cape of Good Hope. It is bounded in the west by Cape Recife and in the east by Cape Padrone. The bay is up to 436 m deep...
in the Eastern Cape
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...
province, and comprises the city of Port Elizabeth, the nearby towns of Uitenhage
Uitenhage
Uitenhage is a South African town with 275,185 inhabitants in the Eastern Cape Province. It is well known for the Volkswagen factory located there, which is the biggest car factory on the African continent. The town's name is pronounced by English speakers and in Afrikaans...
and Despatch, and the surrounding rural area.
The name "Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality" was chosen to honour former President
President of South Africa
The President of the Republic of South Africa is the head of state and head of government under South Africa's Constitution. From 1961 to 1994, the head of state was called the State President....
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, although there is no geographical feature in the area by that name.
History
In 2001, the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality was formed as an administrative area covering Port ElizabethPort Elizabeth, Eastern Cape
Port Elizabeth is one of the largest cities in South Africa, situated in the Eastern Cape Province, east of Cape Town. The city, often shortened to PE and nicknamed "The Friendly City" or "The Windy City", stretches for 16 km along Algoa Bay, and is one of the major seaports in South Africa...
, the neighbouring towns of Uitenhage and Despatch and the surrounding agricultural areas.
Demographics and statistics
As of the censusCensus
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of 2001, there are 1,005,776 people and 260,798 households in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality. The official estimate of population in 2007 was 1,050,930.
In the 2007 census, 60.4% of respondents described themselves as Black African, 22.6% Coloured
Coloured
In the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured refers to an heterogenous ethnic group who possess ancestry from Europe, various Khoisan and Bantu tribes of Southern Africa, West Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaya, India, Mozambique,...
, 16.1% White and 0.9% Indian/Asian.
The largest religious groupings are
Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
(89.4% of residents), No Religion
Irreligion
Irreligion is defined as an absence of religion or an indifference towards religion. Sometimes it may also be defined more narrowly as hostility towards religion. When characterized as hostility to religion, it includes antitheism, anticlericalism and antireligion. When characterized as...
(6.1%), Muslim
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
(1.5%), Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
(0.4%) and Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
(0.3%).
57.3% of the residents speak IsiXhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
as their mother tongue.
Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
is the mother tongue of 29.7%, and
English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, 12.1%.
- 16.0% of all households are single-person.
- The average household size is 3.86.
- The median age is 26 years.
- For every 100 females there are 91.2 males.
- 28.2% of the population aged 15–65 is unemployed.
- The median annual income of working adults aged 15–65 is ZARSouth African randThe rand is the currency of South Africa. It takes its name from the Witwatersrand , the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built and where most of South Africa's gold deposits were found. The rand has the symbol "R" and is subdivided into 100 cents, symbol "c"...
21 837 ($3,282).
According to the 2009 edition of the municipality's 2006-2011 Integrated Development Plan, manufacturing is the single largest contributor to the local economy (33%), followed by community services (27%). Tourism represents a key sector of the economy that has increasingly contributed to job creation in recent years, thanks in large part to the municipality's seaside location and its abundance of unspoiled beaches, of which four carry Blue Flag status
Blue Flag beach
The Blue Flag is a certification by the Foundation for Environmental Education that a beach or marina meets its stringent standards.The Blue Flag is a trademark owned by FEE which is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation consisting of 65 organisations in 60 member countries in Europe,...
.
100% of households have access to a source of water within a 200 m radius. 91% of households have access to a basic level of sanitation. 100% of households within the urban boundary have access to a basic level of solid waste removal, and 97% of households in formally demarcated municipal residential areas have access to a basic level of electricity. The municipality has 41 permanent and satellite clinics, 13 mobile clinics, eight hospitals, 22 libraries, 31 community and municipal halls, 79 sports facilities, 19 beaches, 18 pools, 273 schools, one university (the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University is a South African tertiary education institution with its main administration in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth. The merger creating the NMMU was realized in January 2005 but its history dates back to 1882 with the foundation of Port Elizabeth Art School...
), four technical colleges and two Further Education and Training institutions.