Richards Bay is a town in KwaZulu-Natal

KwaZulu-Natal

KwaZulu-Natal is a province of South Africa. Prior to 1994, the territory now known as KwaZulu-Natal was made up of the province of Natal and the homeland of KwaZulu....

, 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 situated on a 30 square kilometre lagoon of the Mhlatuze River

Mhlatuze River

Mhlathuze River, catchment has a surface area of 4,209 km2. Located in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It rises in the west at an altitude of 1,519m and flows over 100km eastwards to the sea. The deep-sea port of Richards Bay is situated at the mouth of the Mhlathuze River and all industrial...

, which gives it one of the country's largest harbours.

History

The town began as a makeshift harbour that was set up by Commodore of the Cape, Sir Frederick Richards

Frederick Richards

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick William Richards GCB was the British First Naval Lord from 1893 to 1899.-Early life:...

 during the Anglo-Zulu War

Anglo-Zulu War

The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom.Following the imperialist scheme by which Lord Carnarvon had successfully brought about federation in Canada, it was thought that a similar plan might succeed with the various African kingdoms, tribal areas and...

 of 1879. In 1935 the Richards Bay Game Sanctuary was created to protect the ecology around the lagoon and later by 1943 it expanded into the Richards Bay Park. The town was laid-out on the shores of the lagoon in 1954 and proclaimed a town in 1969. In 1976 Richards Bay harbour was converted into a deep water harbour with railway and an oil

Oil

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....

/gas

Gas

Gas is one of the three classical states of matter . Near absolute zero, a substance exists as a solid. As heat is added to this substance it melts into a liquid at its melting point , boils into a gas at its boiling point, and if heated high enough would enter a plasma state in which the electrons...

 pipeline linking the port to Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

.

Economy

The Richards Bay Coal Terminal

Richards Bay Coal Terminal

The Richards Bay Coal Terminal , located in the Richards Bay harbour, is the largest coal export facility in Africa. The Chinese port of Qinhuangdao maintains the largest coal exporting terminal in the world, at 209 Million tons compared to Richards Bay with 91 Million tons.Potential throughput is...

 is the largest coal export facility in the world with a planned capacity of 91 million tons per year by the first half of 2009. In 2007 annual throughput was 66.12 million tons.

Two aluminium

Aluminium

Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....

 smelters, Hillside Aluminum and Bayside Aluminium are operated by BHP Billiton

BHP Billiton

BHP Billiton is a global mining, oil and gas company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and with a major management office in London, United Kingdom...

. A fertiliser plant operated by Foskor (previously known as IOF), a subsidiary of Foskor, have been erected at the harbour. Iron ore, rutile (titanium oxide)

Rutile

Rutile is a mineral composed primarily of titanium dioxide, TiO2.Rutile is the most common natural form of TiO2. Two rarer polymorphs of TiO2 are known:...

 and zircon

Zircon

Zircon is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates. Its chemical name is zirconium silicate and its corresponding chemical formula is ZrSiO4. A common empirical formula showing some of the range of substitution in zircon is 1–x4x–y...

 are mined from the sand dunes close to the lagoon by Richards Bay Minerals

Richards Bay Minerals

Richards Bay Minerals is a South African mining company. RBM's principal product is titanium dioxide in the form of an 85% pure titanium dioxide slag; the company also produces the higher-purity 95% titanium dioxide product rutile as well as pig iron and zircon.The company's principal operations...

. Local exports include coal, aluminium, titanium and other heavy minerals, granite, ferrochrome, paper pulp, woodchips and phosphoric acid. Richards Bay is alongside with Rustenberg, South Africa's fastest developing city. It is a fast growing industrial centre that has additionally been able to maintain its ecological diversity.

However, like most of South Africa, the Richards Bay area is plagued by unemployment and poverty. Unemployment has been estimated at forty percent and an undefined number of people live below the poverty line. The local government have made efforts to implement projects aimed at poverty reduction.

The "John Ross Highway" (P496) which links Richards Bay to Empangeni and the N2 highway

N2 (South Africa)

The N2 is a National Route in South Africa; it is the main highway along the Indian Ocean coast of the country. The N2 starts in Cape Town in the Western Cape and runs through the cities of Port Elizabeth and East London in the Eastern Cape and Durban in KwaZulu-Natal to end at Ermelo in...

  is named after "John Ross" (real name, Charles Rawden Maclean

Charles Rawden Maclean

Charles Rawden Maclean, also known as "John Ross" was born on 17 August 1815 in Fraserburgh and died 13 August 1880 at sea on the RMS Larne while on route to Southampton...

), who at the age of 15 walked from Port Natal to Maputo

Maputo

Maputo, also known as Lourenço Marques, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. It is known as the City of Acacias in reference to acacia trees commonly found along its avenues and the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. It was famous for the inscription "This is Portugal" on the walkway of its...

 and back to procure medicine and supplies for the early settlers.

Government and politics

Since municipal boundaries were newly demarcated in 2000, the Inkatha Freedom Party

Inkatha Freedom Party

The Inkatha Freedom Party is a political party in South Africa. Since its founding, it has been led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. It is currently the fourth largest party in the National Assembly of South Africa.-History:...

 (IFP) were in power in the uMhlatuze Municipality. However, due to the final floor crossing period, the IFP lost control of the Municipality to the ruling African National Congress

African National Congress

The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...

. The Mayor of uMhlatuze is now Alphas Mbatha, whose term will run until at least 2016.

Demographics

White people account for 39.98 percent of the population, followed by Black Africans

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

 at 37.05 percent, Asians or Indians at 19.16 percent and 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,...

s at 3.8 percent. 74.19 percent of the population is under the age of 34 years, with 2.73 percent over the age of 65. For every 100 females, there are 93 males. The population density has been estimated to be 526-1192 persons/km squared. There are 12,433 households in Richards Bay, with 66.4 percent of such households being house or brick structure. According to household income, the wealthiest suburb is Meerensee, with an average household income of more than R153,601 per annum. The unemployment rate in Richards Bay alone is 19 percent, compared with 55 percent in surrounding rural areas.

22 percent of the population have completed school only. A further 8.45 percent have a tertiary education. 16.7 percent have received no schooling at all. However, this data reflects the uMhlatuze municipality as a whole.

Geography and climate

Richards Bay is characterised by a subtropical climate

Humid subtropical climate

A humid subtropical climate is a climate zone characterized by hot, humid summers and mild to cool winters...

 with warm wet summers and mild moist to dry winters, which are frost-free. The town has an average annual rainfall of 1228 millimeters (48.3 in). The average annual temperature is 21.5°C (71°F), with daytime maxima peaking from January to March at 29°C (84°F), and the minimum is 21°C (70°F), dropping to daytime highs from June to August of 23°C (73°F) and a minimum of 12°C (53°F). Sunrise is at 04h45 and sunset at 19h00 in summer. In winter sunrise is at 06h20 and sunset at 17h00. Richards Bay is a popular kitesurfing

Kitesurfing

Kitesurfing or Kiteboarding is an adventure surface water sport that has been described as combining wakeboarding, windsurfing, surfing, paragliding, and gymnastics into one extreme sport. Kitesurfing harnesses the power of the wind to propel a rider across the water on a small surfboard or a...

 destination thanks to consistent winds blowing from the North East.

The Richards Bay area is generally very flat and is situated on a coastal plain. The terrain rises slightly towards the west. The suburbs are all no more than a few metres (Reneging around 140m) (feet 459.3ft) above sea level

Above mean sea level

The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...

. The area is abundant in coastal dune forest, most notably along the coastal dune belt and in the suburb of Meerensee.

Climate Table

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Highest recorded temperature (°C)	41	39	39	37	35	35	31	37	40	42	43	42	43
Average daily maximum temperature (°C)	29	29	29	27	25	23	23	24	25	25	27	29	26
Average daily minimum temperature (°C)	21	21	20	18	15	12	12	14	16	17	19	20	17
Lowest recorded temperature (°C)	11	13	14	8	7	6	4	5	6	10	11	13	4
Average monthly precipitation (mm)	172	167	107	109	109	57	60	65	77	105	114	86	1228
Average number of rain days (>= 1 mm)	12	12	10	8	7	6	6	7	9	12	13	11	113

2010 Fifa World Cup

Due to its regional airport, its close proximity to Durban (2 hour drive) and its status as the gateway to Zululand, Richards Bay was identified as a possible training base for the World Cup. A small stadium aimed at achieving Fifa accreditation was developed. In late 2009 a Ghana delegation visited the town, raising speculation that the Ghana football team

Ghana national football team

The Ghana national football team, popularly known as the Black Stars, is the national association football team of Ghana and is controlled by the Ghana Football Association...

 could base themselves in the town. In May 2010 it was announced that the Nigeria football team

Nigeria national football team

The Nigeria national football team, nicknamed the Super Eagles or Green Eagles, is the national team of Nigeria and is controlled by the Nigeria Football Federation . The team has ranked as high as 5th in the FIFA World Rankings, in April 1994...

 will move their base to Richards Bay for the duration of the World Cup.

Famous people

• Lindokuhle "Linda" Mkhwanazi
  Lindokuhle Mkhwanazi
  Lindokuhle "Linda" Mkhwanazi is a South African football player who plays as a defensive midfielder for Thanda Royal Zulu in the South African Premier Soccer League.-Career:...
  
   - Soccer player
• Marius Jonker
  Marius Jonker
  Marius Jonker is one of South Africa's top rugby union referees. He refereed at the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France, and regularly takes charge of Super 14 and Currie Cup matches.-Career:...
  
   - Rugby referee
• Ryan Jury - Travelstart employee