Heidelberg is a town situated along the N3 National Route and R42 Provincial Route in the Gauteng Province of South Africa, about 50 km south-east of Johannesburg, close to the Mpumalanga border.
The town sits at the eastern end of the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, next to the N3 highway connecting Johannesburg and Durban.
Heidelberg is part of the Lesedi Local Municipality in the Sedibeng District.
The area was once the kraal of the Bakwena, until colonization and the Basotho wars.
Heidelberg was founded in 1862 as a trading station by a German, Heinrich Julius Ueckermann. A town was laid out around the store and named after Ueckermann’s alma mater, Heidelberg University.
In 1866, the District of Heidelberg was created from the eastern portion of the Potchefstroom district with its own landdrost (magistrate), having been laid out as a churchplace in 1865.
Heidelberg was the capital of the South African Republic during the war with Great Britain under the Triumvirate of Paul Kruger, P.J. Joubert and M.W. Pretorius, from 1880 to 1883. In 1885, the Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered, and the office of the Mining Commissioner was established here in Heidelberg.
