Johannesburg

Johannesburg, South Africa

A low-angle view from the Nelson Mandela Bridge railings showing the Johannesburg skyline glowing in golden hour light.

Johannesburg is South Africa's largest city, a high-altitude gold-rush capital of galleries, markets and township life beside a working skyline.

The place

Johannesburg — Joburg or Jozi in everyday speech, and the City of Gold as an older nickname — is South Africa's largest city and Gauteng's provincial capital. The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality counts about 4.8 million people, set on the Witwatersrand at 1,753 metres. Xhosa speakers call it eGoli and Zulu speakers iGoli, names that point back to the gold reef under the ridge. The settlement began in 1886, when mining followed a gold find across land that had been farmed, and the camp grew into the country's commercial centre. Johannesburg is not the judicial capital — Bloemfontein holds that title — but the Constitutional Court sits here, so the highest court and the main stock exchange share one city. The map is a joining-together of towns, suburbs and townships that once stood apart, and apartheid-era planning still shows in the long distances between where people live and where they work. Towers pack the central business district; north of them lie leafy suburbs, while university streets and former townships keep separate characters. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange draws commuters from across South Africa, and galleries have pulled evening life back into inner neighbourhoods. At this height the sky is bright, and highways stitch districts that do not share a street grid.

Its story

Johannesburg's ground was lived on long before anyone pegged out a mining camp. San hunter-gatherers left stone tools across the high country, and traces of their presence reach back many centuries. By the eighteenth century, Sotho-Tswana communities held much of the wider region: villages, chiefdoms and walled towns ran from the Bechuanaland Protectorate, today's Botswana, south towards Lesotho and east into the Pedi country of what is now Limpopo. Stone-wall ruins of those settlements still lie scattered through the old Transvaal, including the belt of land where Johannesburg later rose. Wars that spread out of Zululand in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries — remembered as the mfecane or difaqane — broke many of those towns and pushed people off their fields. A Zulu offshoot, the Ndebele — Sotho-Tswana neighbours knew them as the Matabele — then raised a kingdom northwest of the future city, around present-day Rustenburg. The modern city itself dates from 1886. Prospectors had already struck the main Witwatersrand reef on the farm Vogelstruisfontein, work associated with Jan Gerritse Bantjes, and once that reef was understood the rush followed. Gold drew workers from across southern Africa and from overseas, and the diggings hardened into a city. Apartheid's spatial split, with dormitory townships set far from the mines and the offices, still shows in the daily commute.

What to see

Culture

Johannesburg is a working cultural centre in South Africa, with training grounds and stages spread from the inner city to the university belt. The National School of Arts trains performers in the inner city, while Wits runs its own School of the Arts up in the university belt. The South African Ballet Theatre keeps a company in the city too. Mary Fitzgerald Square anchors one cluster of public space used for gatherings and festivals, while theatres, galleries and libraries fill the blocks around it. The Johannesburg City Library stands in the central business district, a civic reading room in the middle of the commercial towers. The Johannesburg Art Gallery holds European and African work across several centuries, and Wits Art Museum in Braamfontein concentrates on historic and contemporary African art. Private collections and commercial galleries cluster in the northern suburbs, a short hop from the public museums. Ask before you photograph people in markets, townships or on the street, and take no for an answer.

What to wear

Johannesburg has no single traditional costume, because the city gathers Zulu, Sotho, Xhosa, Ndebele and Afrikaans communities, each with cloth of its own. Shweshwe, a cotton printed with small geometric motifs, is cut into dresses, shirts and skirts for weddings and for Heritage celebrations. Zulu dress brings beadwork, the married woman's isidwaba and, for ceremony, the isicholo hat; Basotho blankets, heavy wool panels with bold bands, turn up when the highveld wind is cold; Ndebele beadwork and bright stacked rings appear at cultural days. On a weekday the business districts run on jackets and dresses, while Braamfontein and the townships favour denim, sneakers and layered streetwear. Summer afternoons are warm enough for short sleeves; at 1,753 metres the evenings and the dry winter cool quickly, so residents keep a jacket to hand. Visitors do well with the same logic: breathable layers, a sun hat, and comfortable closed shoes for long pavements and uneven market ground. At places of worship and some family ceremonies, cover shoulders and knees.

What to eat

Plan it

Best time. March to May is a comfortable stretch on Johannesburg's highveld, after the heaviest summer storms and before the coldest nights. September and October are another good window. December to February brings heat and sudden thunderstorms; June to August is dry, sunny and chilly after dark. At 1,753 metres, pack for sun and a cool evening.

How long. 3–4

Getting there. O. R. Tambo International Airport lies east of Johannesburg's city centre, with international and domestic terminals side by side. Gautrain trains run towards Sandton, and taxis or ride-hailing cars finish the trip. Highways arrive from Cape Town, Durban, the Kruger side and Kimberley. Weekday mornings and late afternoons are slow, so leave spare time.

Budget. mid

Tips

Etiquette

Nearby

Sources