The "John Ross Parkway" (P496) which links Richards Bay to Empangeni and the N2 highway is named after "John Ross" (real name, Charles Rawden Maclean), who at the age of 15 walked from Port Natal to Maputo and back to procure medicine and supplies for the early settlers. The local government have not made enough efforts to implement projects aimed at poverty reduction. Unemployment has been estimated at forty percent and an undefined number of people live below the poverty line. However, like most of South Africa, the Richards Bay area is plagued by unemployment and poverty. It is a fast-growing industrial centre that has been able to maintain its ecological diversity. Richards Bay is, alongside Rustenburg, South Africa's fastest-developing city. Local exports include coal, aluminium, titanium and other heavy minerals, granite, ferrochrome, paper pulp, wood chips and phosphoric acid. Iron ore, rutile (titanium oxide) and zircon are mined from the sand dunes close to the lagoon by Richards Bay Minerals, part of the Rio Tinto group. A fertiliser plant operated by Foskor has been erected at the harbour. Two aluminium smelters, Hillside Aluminum and Bayside Aluminium are operated by South32. The Australian port of Newcastle, New South Wales is the largest coal exporting harbour in the world, exporting just over 161 million tonnes of coal in 2016. In 2007 annual throughput was 66.12 million tons. The Port of Richards Bay contains what was once the largest coal export facility in the world, with a planned capacity of 91 million tons per year by the first half of 2009. The three suburbs of Richards Bay (excluding the black township of Esikhaweni) had a combined population of about 20,000 in 1990. Residential areas for Indians and coloureds were opened after 1985 west of VeldenVlei. A township for blacks was developed at Esikhaweni, fifteen kilometres south of Richards Bay. It was followed by Arboretum in 1975, and VeldenVlei in 1980.Īll three suburbs catered exclusively for whites in accordance with the existing laws of apartheid. Meerensee, started in 1970, was the first suburb. The new residential area for Richards Bay was developed north of the harbour. On 1 April 1976, the new deep water harbour was opened with a railway and an oil/ gas pipeline linking the port to Johannesburg. In January 1976, there was a forced removal of local inhabitants of the Mthiyane Zulu clan. Construction work began in 1972 and lasted four years. In 1965, the South African Government under Minister of Transport Ben Schoeman decided to build a deep water harbour at Richards Bay. The town was laid out on the shores of the lagoon in 1954 and proclaimed a town in 1969. In 1935 the Richards Bay Game Sanctuary was created to protect the ecology around the lagoon and by 1943 it expanded into the Richards Bay Park. In 1902, Cathcart Methven, the harbour engineer for the Natal Government, in his Zululand Port Survey recognized the potential of Richards Bay as a new harbour for the eastern shore. The town began as a makeshift harbour that was set up by Commodore of the Cape, Sir Frederick Richards, during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. 7.4 2015 South African Surf Championships.7.3 2011 South African Surfski Championships.7.1 Richards Bay BG Triathlon World Cup.
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