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 Johannesburg, also known as eGoli (place of gold), is the largest and most populous city in South Africa. Johannesburg is the site of a large-scale gold and diamond trade due to its location on the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills. Johannesburg is also served by O.R. Tambo International Airport, the largest and busiest airport in Africa and a gateway for international air travel to and from the rest of southern Africa.
Jo’burg, or ‘Jozi’ as it’s more commonly known, is without a doubt the great big beating heart of South Africa, and has long played a Jekyll-and-Hyde role in the global consciousness. Often the stage on which the epic of this extraordinary nation has been played out, the colossus of Jo’burg – with all its thrills and foibles – is today a fascinating, multitudinous city, where all the ups and downs of 21st-century South Africa can be witnessed in three, multicolour dimensions.
In the past, the city’s darker personality proved the most enduring. The Jo’burg of the newsflash was a city where fear and loathing reigned supreme; a city where spiralling gun crime and poverty had manifested itself in a society where one half of the population stagnated, while the other looked on impassively through coils of razor wire. |
