Johannesburg

Constitution Hill, Johannesburg

Constitution Hill

Constitution Hill is a former prison complex in Johannesburg that now serves as the seat of South Africa's Constitutional Court. The site transformed from a place of incarceration during the apartheid era into a symbol of democracy and human rights.

• Must see
• Historic monument

Soweto

Soweto is a township southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, established as a segregated residential area during apartheid. It became central to the anti-apartheid struggle, notably the 1976 Soweto Uprising.

• Must see
• Activity

Mandela House

Mandela House is Nelson Mandela’s former home on Vilakazi Street in Orlando West, Soweto. Mandela lived in the house before his imprisonment and returned there briefly after his release in 1990.

• Must see
• Museum

Hector Pieterson Museum

The Hector Pieterson Museum is a memorial museum in Soweto dedicated to the 1976 Soweto uprising.

• Must see
• Museum

Johannesburg Art Gallery

Johannesburg Art Gallery is a public art museum in Joubert Park, in Johannesburg’s inner city.

• Must see
• Museum

Origins Centre

Origins Centre Museum is a museum at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The museum explores human origins, archaeology, rock art, indigenous knowledge, and southern African heritage.

• Must see
• Museum

Maboneng Precinct

Maboneng

Maboneng Precinct is a regenerated inner-city district in eastern Johannesburg, South Africa. The name means place of light in Sesotho.

• Must see
• Activity

Gold Reef City

Gold Reef City is a major theme park and reconstructed gold-rush attraction situated on a historic gold mining site in Johannesburg. It combines amusement park rides with heritage attractions that recreate the atmosphere of the 1886 Witwatersrand Gold Rush.

• Must see
• Historic monument

Wits Art Museum

Wits Art Museum is the public art museum of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The museum collects, preserves, and exhibits African and South African art within a university setting.

• Must see
• Museum

Market Theatre

The Market Square

Market Theatre is a landmark performing-arts venue in Newtown, Johannesburg. The theatre became known during apartheid for providing a platform for protest theatre and multiracial audiences when such gatherings were restricted.

• Must see
• Art and culture venue

MuseuMAfricA

Museum Africa

Museum Africa is a museum in Newtown devoted to the social, cultural, and urban history of Johannesburg and Africa. It places the city within wider African stories of movement, work, community, political change, and cultural expression.

• Must see
• Museum

Newtown Cultural Precinct

Newtown

Newtown Cultural Precinct is a revitalised former market and industrial district in central Johannesburg. The area has been transformed into a cultural hub that concentrates several significant institutions within walkable proximity.

• Must see
• Art and culture venue

Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre

The Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre is a museum and educational facility located in the Rosebank area of Johannesburg. It examines the Holocaust alongside other genocides globally, with particular attention to South African human-rights history.

• Must see
• Museum

Sci-Bono Centre

Sci-Bono Discovery Centre is an independently entered science museum located in Newtown, Johannesburg. It operates with its own exhibitions and visitor programme, distinguishing it from other institutions in the precinct.

• Must see
• Museum

Liliesleaf Farm

Liliesleaf Farm is a liberation-history museum in Rivonia, northern Johannesburg. The property served as an underground headquarters for the African National Congress during the early 1960s.

• Must see
• Museum

Satyagraha House

Satyagraha House is a historic residence in Johannesburg where Mohandas Gandhi lived during his early political activism in South Africa. The house is associated with the development of Satyagraha, his philosophy of nonviolent resistance.

• Must see
• Museum

Nelson Mandela Foundation

The Nelson Mandela Foundation is an archive, exhibition, and research centre in Houghton, Johannesburg. It preserves and interprets Nelson Mandela’s papers, photographs, personal effects, and public legacy.

• Must see
• Museum

Workers Museum

The Workers' Museum occupies a former municipal compound in Newtown, Johannesburg. It preserves the history of migrant labourers who constructed and sustained the mining city from the late 19th century onward.

• Must see
• Museum

Johannesburg Zoo

Johannesburg Zoo is a long-established urban zoo located in Johannesburg, South Africa. It stands as one of the city's foremost family attractions, drawing visitors across generations.

• Must see
• Family attraction

Ponte City Apartments

Ponte City

Ponte City Apartments is a cylindrical residential skyscraper in the Hillbrow neighbourhood of Johannesburg, South Africa. Completed in 1975, the 54-storey building was designed by architects Manfred Hermer and Rodney Grosskopff.

• Must see
• Activity

Main Street Mining District

Main Street

Main Street Mining District is a historic corridor in central Johannesburg where the city’s gold-rush origins remain visible in streets, buildings, monuments, and public art.

• Must see
• Activity

Chancellor House

Chancellor House is a modest three-storey building in Johannesburg that served as the law offices of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo from 1952 to 1960.

• Must see
• Historic monument

Gandhi Square

Gandhi Square is a historic public square in central Johannesburg, named after Mahatma Gandhi who lived and worked in the city during the early twentieth century.

• Must see
• Historic monument

Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden

Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens

Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden is a major nature destination in western Gauteng, managed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute. Its landscape combines indigenous vegetation, open grassland, rocky cliffs, walking trails, wildlife habitat, and a prominent waterfall.

• Must see
• Nature site

Carlton Centre

Carlton Centre is a landmark skyscraper complex in central Johannesburg, associated with the city’s mining-era commercial growth. The Top of Africa viewing deck provides the visitor focus, taking travelers above the inner city for a broad perspective across Johannesburg.

• Must see
• Market

Johannesburg Botanical Garden

Johannesburg Botanical Gardens

Johannesburg Botanical Garden is a large metropolitan green space beside Emmarentia Dam. The garden combines landscaped planting areas, broad lawns, and water-side scenery, creating a slower outdoor contrast to Johannesburg’s built-up districts.

• Must see
• Nature site

Melville Koppies

Melville Koppies Nature Reserve is an ancient quartzite ridge preserved inside Johannesburg. It gives travellers a close view of Highveld grassland, rocky outcrops and indigenous vegetation within the city.

• Must see
• Nature site

The Wilds Municipal Nature Reserve

The Wilds Nature Reserve

The Wilds is a restored inner-city ridge park in Johannesburg. Its elevated ground lifts visitors above surrounding neighbourhoods and creates a strong sense of open space within the city.

• Must see
• Nature site

Delta Park

Delta Park is a large northern-suburbs park and wetland reserve in Johannesburg. It protects an area of open landscape within the metropolitan environment, combining public recreation with conservation.

• Must see
• Nature site

Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve

Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve is a large protected Highveld landscape in southern Johannesburg. Rolling grassland, indigenous vegetation and archaeological evidence give the reserve a character that feels far removed from the surrounding metropolitan development.

• Must see
• Nature site

James Hall Transport Museum

James Hall Museum of Transport

The James Hall Museum of Transport is a Johannesburg museum devoted to the history of transport in South Africa.

• Must see
• Museum

Lindfield Victorian House Museum

Lindfield Victorian House Museum is a preserved Victorian-era residence in Johannesburg, locally known as Lindfield House.

• Must see
• Museum

Goodman Gallery

Goodman Gallery Johannesburg is an influential contemporary-art gallery with a major role in South African and African art discourse.

• Must see
• Art and culture venue

Rosebank Sunday Market

Rosebank Sunday Market is a recurring Sunday market in Johannesburg’s Rosebank precinct. The market brings together independent sellers offering crafts, food, vintage goods and other creative products.

• Must see
• Market

Melville

Melville is a walkable neighbourhood in Johannesburg known for its concentrated local character along 7th Street. The area functions as a social and commercial hub defined by independent businesses rather than formal tourist infrastructure.

• Must see
• Market

Nelson Mandela Square

Nelson Mandela Square is a pedestrian public square in Sandton, Johannesburg, centred on a prominent bronze statue of Nelson Mandela. The square is surrounded by restaurants, cafés and retail spaces, giving the open plaza a distinctly urban character.

• Must see
• Market

Sandton City

Sandton City is a major shopping and dining centre in Sandton, Johannesburg's northern commercial hub. It gives travellers a concentrated indoor setting for retail, food and the everyday energy of a prominent business district.

• Must see
• Market

Regina Mundi

Regina Mundi Roman Catholic Church

Regina Mundi Catholic Church is an active Catholic church in Rockville, Soweto, and one of Johannesburg's most important places connected with the anti-apartheid struggle. The church sheltered activists from security forces and provided space for community meetings and political organisation.

• Must see
• Place of worship

Credo Mutwa Cultural Village

Credo Mutwa Cultural Village is an outdoor sculpture garden and cultural site in Soweto, Johannesburg.

• Must see
• Museum

Orlando Towers

Orlando Towers are a pair of painted former power-station cooling towers standing in Soweto, Johannesburg. These decommissioned industrial structures have been transformed into a distinctive landmark and adventure-activity destination.

• Must see
• Historic monument

Kwa Mai-Mai market

Kwa Mai Mai Traditional Market

Kwa Mai Mai Traditional Market is an inner-city trading hub in Johannesburg specialising in traditional medicine, food, and township commerce. It represents a living cultural space where traditional healers, herbalists, and vendors conduct daily business rooted in indigenous practices.

• Must see
• Market

Nizamiye Masjid

Nizamiye Mosque

Nizamiye Mosque is a large contemporary mosque complex in Midrand, within the Johannesburg metropolitan area. Its architecture is modelled on Ottoman traditions, giving the building a distinctive profile among South Africa's religious landmarks.

• Must see
• Place of worship

Modderfontein Reserve

Modderfontein Reserve is a large green area in the eastern metropolitan part of Johannesburg. The reserve combines Highveld grassland, open natural space and a historic estate landscape linked to earlier industrial and agricultural use.

• Must see
• Nature site

Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve

Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve is a broad highveld grassland landscape southeast of Johannesburg. Its rolling hills, open views and natural vegetation create a clear change of pace from the metropolitan area.

• Must see
• Nature site

Sterkfontein Caves

Sterkfontein Caves forms the principal fossil cave system within the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located northwest of Johannesburg.

• Must see
• Museum