Johannesburg World Cities Research Network. In 2011, the population of the city of Johannesburg was 4,434,827, making it the most populous city in South Africa. In the same year, the population of Johannesburg's urban agglomeration was put at 7,860,781. The land area of the municipal city () is large in comparison with those of other major cities, resulting in a moderate population density of . The city was established in 1886 following the discovery of gold on what had been a farm. The city is commonly interpreted as the modern day El Dorado due to the extremely large gold deposit found
H. Basil S. Cooke H. Basil S. Cooke Herbert Basil Sutton Cooke (17 October 1915 – 3 May 2018) was a South African-Canadian geologist and palaeontologist, and Emeritus Professor at Dalhousie University. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, he was educated at King Edward VII School before earning a B.A. (1936) and M.A. (1940) at Cambridge University, and M.Sc. (1940) and D.Sc. (1947) at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa in 1948 for his contributions to Quaternary geology. He is known for his studies of fossil pigs and other even-toed ungulates of Africa. A