On the eastern coast of South Africa's Indian Ocean, the Ethekwini district of the KwaZulu-Natal province is where Durban is located. The warm ocean currents, beaches and developed infrastructure have made this city a center of tourism. But it wasn't always that way.
A hundred thousand years ago it was home to Khoisan hunters and gatherers, who were wiped out by Bantu tribes from the north.
It was around 1497 that the Portuguese arrived. Vasco da Gama, who was looking for a sea route to India, named the area Natal, which means "Christmas" in Portuguese. But white people didn't settle here until 1824. It was only 25 Englishmen who established the camp. It was a turbulent life, with the camp under constant attack from the local Zulu tribes.
In one of the clashes, the tribal chief was seriously wounded, and the Englishman Henry Finn managed to heal him. The grateful chief then granted the English land along the coast, measuring 30 by 100 miles.
June 23, 1835, is considered the day Durban was founded. The colonists proclaimed its founding on that day, and named the settlement after the governor of the English colonies in South Africa, Sir Benjamin d'Urban.
The conflicts with the local tribes did not end there, however. In 1844, the British annexed the Republic of Natal, which had been founded by Boer militia.
After the annexation, the colonizers established sugar plantations here, but it proved difficult to attract Africans to the work. So the British imported laborers from Pakistan and India. They were hired for an average of 25 years, so soon entire communities of Indians and Pakistanis settled here.
Today, Durban's population is 68.3% black African, 20% English-speaking descendants of Indians and Pakistanis who came to work on the sugar plantations, 9% white, and 2.8% other "colored" people.
With 68% of the population practicing the Christian faith, 11% are Hindu and 3% are Muslim. The Zulu language is mainly used in the city, but English is also widely spoken.
Today, it is the country's third agglomeration by population, after Johannesburg and Cape Town. The South African rand (rand), denominated ZAR, is the currency of choice in the territory.
