More about Johannesburg

With wealth built on gold, Johannesburg is lively, affluent and cosmopolitan, offering the visitor a tempting array of superb restaurants, bustling world-class shopping centres and elegant designer boutiques – yet it is also fresh and breezy with golf courses, botanical gardens and well-manicured parks dotted among its modern amenities.

With easy connections to the Blue Train and Rovos Rail, the city is the gateway to the whole of Southern Africa, including the world-famous Kruger National Park.    

Did you know...

• Johannesburg is one of the few major cities in the world not located on a body of water.
• At 6000 ft above sea-level, it is one of the world’s highest altitude cities.
• Johannesburg is one of the few major cities world-wide where the high quality potable tap water is safe to drink.
• Johannesburg boasts the world’s largest man-made forest of cultivated trees.   Not bad for a city which started life as a mining town on a dusty, treeless and windswept plain in 1886!   

A brief history of Johannesburg:  
The city that leapt to life and became the hub of the continent

Affectionately known as Jozi, Joburg, Joeys or eGoli (meaning "Place of Gold" in Zulu), Johannesburg owes its vibrant rough and tumble to its gold mining origins in 1886.  Its progress as chronicled in The City that Leapt to Life: A 1986 diary celebrating Johannesburg’s flamboyant origins 100 years ago, was swift, gritty and glamorous.

“Within six years, Johannesburg was the largest city in South Africa and within 12 years, was producing more gold than the whole of the United States.  It captured the imagination of the word.  Those who came here, came with a dream in their hearts and a boundless energy that transformed the dream into reality with a speed that amazed the world.”

During the latter half of the 20th century, the world came to know of Johannesburg and Soweto through the dramatic political developments which marked the unraveling of apartheid.  However, as travel writer Sally Roper comments:  “… a visit to Johannesburg involves much more than experiencing its heritage.  Since the advent of democracy in 1994, the city has seen an explosion of creativity in all aspects of hospitality and tourism.  A trip to Joburg signifies the pampering of the body and the nourishing of the soul with the city’s great sweep of history and vast number of thrilling, nail biting or simply heartwarming stories of enterprise, courage and sacrifice.  Joburg’s heritage is its great gift to the visitor.”

Its advocates celebrate the enthusiastic pace and diversity of this “Manhattan in the Veld” the title of a recent photographic exhibition at a local art gallery which phrases the spirit of the city so eloquently:  “While the rest of South Africa sleeps, Johannesburg tries to!”