1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
South Africa
Compare this sourced profile of Thembisa, South Africa before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Thembisa—511,655, Africa/Johannesburg, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: township in South Africa.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Thembisa is GeoNames ID 949880. Its recorded administrative path is Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality → Gauteng → South Africa, and GeoNames classifies the place as a populated place. Thembisa occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2024-04-02; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Thembisa ranks 1,112 by recorded population. Inside the 12 selected South Africa entries it ranks 12; inside the 243 entries in its broad region it ranks 229. Its 511,655 population value is 0.53 times the 961,194 median for the country cohort and 0.57 times the 902,588 regional median. Thembisa sits in the lower half of this atlas's selected South Africa entries. Thembisa's recorded value is materially below the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Thembisa's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Benoni at 23.333 km with 605,344 recorded people; Pretoria at 28.236 km with 2,112,693 recorded people; Johannesburg at 29.305 km with 9,418,183 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 5.972 km. Compared with Benoni, Thembisa's recorded population is 0.85 times as large. Against Thembisa, Benoni follows Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality → Gauteng → South Africa in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected South Africa cohort, uses the shared Africa/Johannesburg identifier, and carries the same populated place class. Its recorded population is above Thembisa's. Against Thembisa, Pretoria follows City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality → Gauteng → South Africa in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected South Africa cohort, uses the shared Africa/Johannesburg identifier, and carries capital of a political entity rather than populated place. Its recorded population is above Thembisa's. Against Thembisa, Johannesburg follows City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality → Gauteng → South Africa in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected South Africa cohort, uses the shared Africa/Johannesburg identifier, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than populated place. Its recorded population is above Thembisa's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 289 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Thembisa's nearest-coordinate gap falls between the tightest tenth and quarter of the atlas. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 949880, the coordinate pair 25.9964 / 28.2268, country rank 12 of 12, and neighbor GeoNames 1020098 at 23.333 km bind Thembisa to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Thembisa's reference point is 25.9964° south and 28.2268° east. The IANA identifier Africa/Johannesburg is shared by 12 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPL is shared by 243 rows. Thembisa's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Thembisa's point falls in the lower-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Thembisa's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Thembisa, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Thembisa's closest other entries in this atlas are Benoni (23.333 km), Pretoria (28.236 km), Johannesburg (29.305 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Thembisa, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2024-04-02; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.