{"id":17531,"date":"2017-03-16T18:28:22","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T23:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=17531"},"modified":"2022-05-02T06:21:22","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T11:21:22","slug":"directional-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/directional-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Directional South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few months ago, Twelve Mile Circle featured Directional West Virginia<\/a>. It focused on the situation of a state with a direction in its name, as well as various places within the state that also featured directions. Why should some random corner of the United States have all of the fun? Entire countries featured directional prefixes. I could play the same game on a national level. That thought struck me when I noticed a visitor landing on 12MC from the city of East London in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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East London<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"East<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

East London hugged the South African coastline on the southeastern side of the nation (map<\/a>). A respectable number of people lived there too, about a quarter million in the city proper and nearing eight hundred thousand in its larger metropolitan area. It also occupied a strategic spot, the site of the only river port in South Africa. Because of that, Governor, Sir Harry Smith annexed this area<\/a> at the mouth of the Buffalo River on behalf of the Cape Colony in 1848. He called it East London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wondered about the name. The London part seemed obvious. Why East, though? Using Great Circle distances and simple mathematics, it seemed that East London fell nearly 5 times farther south of its namesake than east of it. Logically, shouldn’t it be South London? Maybe Governor Smith named it for the East London section of London, or perhaps its smaller subset, the East End<\/a> of London. I don’t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, a lot of people lived in East<\/em> London, South<\/em> Africa, a name referencing two distinct directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cape Tripoint<\/h2>\n\n\n\n