Talk:List of cities in South Africa

message: There are some interesting ommissions and inclusions on this list - I don't think the concept of a 'city' is used consistently here. Anyone know the official SA definition?
:I don't think cities are defined exist in the South African system of government. We have provinces, and under these are municipalities, 6 of which belong to the class "metropolitan municipalities", roughly corresponding to most people's concept of a city. I don't think towns are recognised as discrete entities, either. If you look at the census 2001 information, for example, it's all arranged according to province, district and municipality. It's a difficult question, and one that will need more research. -198.54.202.242 16:35, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this page, started before categories appeared in wikipedia, should be scrapped in favour of a Category. Wizzy…☎ 13:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

message: In light of the development of Municipality articles, Im struggling to see a point to this article as it appears to be nothing more than a page dedicated to the Cities Network. List of settlements in South Africa make sense but this article does not achieve that
Paul Hjul 14:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Purpose of this article

message: I created a sortable table, but I'm no expert in whether the table was correctly created.  The data was taken from the wiki pages of each city.  I believe there are more cities than these 9, but I think we should start by having a table like the one I created. -- leuce (talk) 13:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sortable list 

message: I think this article should mention whether there is an official definition of "city" in South Africa, and if so (or if not) whether there was a definition in the Old South Africa.
Not sure if we should add a "trivia"-like section mentioning a list of placenames that contain the word 'city' but are not cities, or words that contain something like 'town' but are cities :-) because Afrikaanse placenames with "stad" (city) often have "town" in their English equivalents, eg the villages of Simons Town (Simonstad) and Grahams Town (Grahamstad), and the city of Cape Town (Kaapstad).
So, definitions of city:
* The South African Cities Network  -- they receive government funding but that doesn't mean their definition of city is the official government definition.  I find no definition of "city" anywhere on their site.
* If a town has a "city council", then that's one way of finding out whether it considers itself a city or not.  An examples not included in the 9-list is Klerksdorp, Gauteng.  They have a city council and not a town council.
* Mongabay's list of towns with more than 100 000 residents  -- their list is here:
City name         	City population	Urban area population	Population according to Wikipedia (not by Mongabay)	Comment about Wikipedia information
Cape Town         	2686000        	3086600              	2893000                                            	(but infobox says 3497000)
Durban            	2354900        	2354900              	3468000                                            	
Johannesburg      	1646400        	5014000              	3888000                                            	
Pretoria          	1228200        	1514800              	2346000                                            	
Soweto            	1221100        	1221100              	896000                                             	
Port Elizabeth    	833900         	1047600              	737000                                             	
Pietermaritzburg  	420500         	420500               	228000                                             	(but infobox says 522000, which is greater urban area)
Benoni            	406400         	406400               	655000                                             	
Vereeniging       	385600         	774200               	350000                                             	("more than...")
Bloemfontein      	371200         	371200               	370000                                             	
Newcastle         	244300         	244300               	220000                                             	
East London       	236100         	549300               	480000                                             	
Welkom            	226100         	226100               	410000                                             	
Botshabelo        	197900         	197900               	1000000                                            	(can this be?)
Kimberley         	189500         	189500               	210000                                             	
Witbank           	185900         	18590                	                                                   	
Carltonville      	182800         	182800               	                                                   	
Klerksdorp        	152700         	152700               	350000                                             	(in greater urban area)
Rustenburg        	116200         	116200               	396000                                             	
Potchefstroom     	113100         	113100               	125000                                             	
Nelspruit         	105300         	105300               	221500                                             	
George            	104700         	104700               	140000                                             	
King Williams Town	103700         	103700               	                                                   	
Nigel             	102000         	102000               	                                                   	
Pietersburg       	101600         	101600               	310000                                             	(in greater urban area)
(Oops, I forgot to add mention of which dates the Wikipedia figures were estamated on.)
* Check out how I unsuccessfully tried to have Bellville classified as a city in Wikipedia. :-)
* I'm not sure which authority in South Africa would be responsible for defining a city and classifying something as a city.  I'm under the impression that city status was officially conferred on places in the Old South Africa, but I find no references for it.
* And then of course there are the metropoles or municipalities with "City" in their name but which encompass multiple tows and cities, eg City of Cape Town, City of Tswane, and City of Matlosana. -- leuce (talk) 14:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different definitions of "city" 

message: I removed this table from the front page... but we can add it again later when we've cleaned it up.
City           	Province     	Area (km²)	Population	Density
Cape Town      	Western Cape 	          	          	
Port Elizabeth 	Eastern Cape 	          	          	
East London    	Eastern Cape 	          	          	
Durban         	KwaZulu-Natal	          	          	
Petermaritzburg	KwaZulu-Natal	          	          	
Bloemfontein   	Free State   	          	          	
Johannesburg   	Gauteng      	          	          	
Pretoria       	Gauteng      	          	          	
-- leuce (talk) 22:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The sortable table 

message: * Urban Development Strategy of the Government of National Unity, Pretoria, 12 October 1995
* A sustainability analysis of human settlements in South Africa,  —Preceding unsigned comment added by NJR ZA (talk • contribs) 19:18, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Resources to improve this article