eMalahleni

eMalahleni, still widely known by its earlier name Witbank, is a city on the Highveld of Mpumalanga province in South Africa, within the Emalahleni Local Municipality. Witbank is Afrikaans for white ridge, referring to a white sandstone outcrop where wagon drivers once rested, while the municipality's 2006 renaming to eMalahleni means place of coal. The city was founded in 1890 and grew once the railway from Pretoria reached it in 1894, becoming a proclaimed town in 1903 and a municipality in 1914; the 2011 census recorded 108,673 residents across 164.27 square kilometers. Coal mining defines its economy, with more than twenty collieries operating within the municipal boundary alongside major industrial employers including Anglo American, Eskom and Evraz, making it one of South Africa's principal coal and power generation hubs.