Lorentzville

Lorentzville
Lorentzville Show map of Gauteng Lorentzville Show map of South Africa
Coordinates: 26.190°S 28.069°E / -26.190; 28.069
Country	South Africa
Province	Gauteng
Municipality	City of Johannesburg
Main Place	Johannesburg
Established	1892
Area [1]
• Total	0.40 km^2 (0.15 sq mi)
Population  (2011)[1]
• Total	3,032
• Density	7,600/km^2 (20,000/sq mi)
Racial makeup (2011) [1]
• Black African	90.0%
• Coloured	4.8%
• Indian/Asian	2.8%
• White	2.3%
• Other	0.1%
First languages (2011) [1]
• Zulu	27.5%
• English	19.2%
• Southern Ndebele	10.2%
• Xhosa	7.4%
• Other	35.6%
Time zone	UTC+2 (SAST)
Postal code (street)	2094

Lorentzville is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is a small suburb found on the eastern edge of the Johannesburg central business district (CBD), tucked between the suburbs of Bertrams and Judith's Paarl, with Troyeville to the south. It is located in Region F of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality.

History

The suburb was founded on one of the original farms on the Witwatersrand, after a strip of land was sold from the farm Doornfontein.^[2]: 158 The suburbs name has its origins in the name of the Lorentz family, who had lived both in Pretoria and on the Witwatersrand in the Bezuidenhout Valley.^[2]: 156 JG van Boeschoten, J. Lorentz and R.F. Bertram would purchase the land.^[3]: 173 It was laid out from 1892 but was later resurveyed in 1902.^{[4][3]: 173}

It was previously a predominantly working class Jewish suburb and became associated with prominent Jewish South Africans such as Sol Kerzner and William Kentridge.^[5] It was home to the Lorentzville Shul, formally known as the Bertrams Hebrew Congregation, which now operates as an art studio.^[6] It later became a hub for the Portuguese South African community, before becoming multi-ethnic.^[5]

References

1. "Sub Place Lorentzville". Census 2011.
2. Leyds, Gerald Anton (1964). A History of Johannesburg: The Early Years. Nasional Boekhandel. p. 318.
3. Musiker, Naomi; Musiker, Reuben (2000). A Concise Historical Dictionary of Greater Johannesburg. Cape Town: Francolin. ISBN 1868590712.
4. Raper, Peter E.; Moller, Lucie A.; du Plessis, Theodorus L. (2014). Dictionary of Southern African Place Names. Jonathan Ball Publishers. p. 1412. ISBN 9781868425501.
5. The crafting of Victoria Yards, Joburg's new creative space in Lorentzville Business Day. 14 February 2018
6. ‘What I Do Is Also a Form of Religion’: Inside the Obscure and Tantalizing World of South African Artist Nicholas Hlobo Art Net. 18 March 2022