Merafong City Local Municipality (GT 484) is a category B municipality as defined in the Municipal Structures Act. The area size of the municipality is 1631, 7km2 and it comprises of twenty eight (28) wards. MCLM is situated in the South Western part of Gauteng Province and form a part of West Rand District Municipality which consists of four local municipalities namely: Mogale City, RandWest Municipality and Merafong City and  a district management area, which comprises a portion of the cradle of humankind world heritage site.

MCLM incorporates the following areas:

•   Carletonville
•   Khutsong
•   Fochville
•   Kokosi
•   Greenspark
•   Welverdiend
•   Wedela
•   Blybank

According to Statistics South Africa Community Survey (CS) 2016 the population of Merafong was 188 843 with 66 525, whilst according to Census 2011, Merafong’s population was 197 520. The average household size was estimated to be 2.8 persons per household, which is slightly less than the average household size in the Gauteng Province of 3.1 persons. This is attributable to the living conditions in the mining area, where the settlement structures are less convenient to raise families (MCLM, 2016). The majority of the settlement structures (such as hostels) in this municipality were designed to accommodate the working people in the mining industry.