eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality

The eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality, created in 2000, that includes the city of Durban and surrounding towns. eThekwini is one of the 11 districts of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. As of 2011, the majority of its 3,442,361 inhabitants spoke isiZulu. Etymology In an 1859 Zulu grammar book, Bishop Colenso asserted that the root word means "bay of the sea", from the name Mtheku, used by the Thabethe tribes clan, who were the leaders of the Nguni people. Furthermore the original local inhabitants and noted that the locative form, , was used as a proper name for Durban. An 1895 English-Zulu dictionary translates the base word as "bay", "creek", "gulf" or "sinus", while a 1905 Zulu-English dictionary notes that is used for Durban. Geography eThekwini is surrounded by: iLembe (DC29) to the north the Indian Ocean to the east Ugu (DC21) to the south Umgungundlovu (DC22) to the west