Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foothills of the Magaliesberg mountains. Pretoria is the central part of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality which was formed by the amalgamation of several former local authorities, including Bronkhorstspruit , Centurion , Cullinan , Hammanskraal and Soshanguve. Some have proposed changing the official name from Pretoria to Tshwane , which has caused some public controversy. Pretoria is named after the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius , [ 8 ] and South Africans sometimes call it the "Jacaranda City", [ 9 ] because of the thousands of jacaranda trees planted along its streets and in its parks and gardens.
The elder Pretorius had become a national hero of the Voortrekkers after his victory over Dingane and the Zulus in the Battle of Blood River in The elder Pretorius also negotiated the Sand River Convention , in which the United Kingdom acknowledged the independence of the Transvaal.
It became the capital of the South African Republic on 1 May The founding of Pretoria as the capital of the South African Republic can be seen as marking the end of the Boers' settlement movements of the Great Trek.
The peace treaty that ended the war was signed in Pretoria on 3 August at the Pretoria Convention. The city surrendered to British forces under Frederick Roberts on 5 June and the conflict was ended in Pretoria with the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging on 31 May at Melrose House.
Though some of these forts are today in ruins, a number of them have been preserved as national monuments. Pretoria then became the administrative capital of the whole of South Africa, with Cape Town serving as the legislative capital and Bloemfontein as the judicial capital. Between and , the city was also the capital of the province of Transvaal. On 14 October , Pretoria achieved official city status. Pretoria is situated approximately 56 km 35 mi north-northeast of Johannesburg in the northeast of South Africa , in a transitional belt between the plateau of the Highveld to the south and the lower-lying Bushveld to the north.
