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South Africa

6 city guides · Africa

Cities in South Africa (6)

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🇿🇦 South Africa

Bloemfontein

Bloemfontein (Afrikaans: "Fountain of Flowers" — population 500,000 city, 1.0 million metropolitan area: the capital of the Free State Province and the judicial capital of South Africa — the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa (the highest court for non-constitutional matters in South Africa)) is one of the three capitals of South Africa: the administrative capital is Pretoria (also known as Tshwane), the legislative capital is Cape Town, and the judicial capital is Bloemfontein (also known by its Sesotho name "Mangaung" — "place of cheetahs"). The city was established on 19 January 1846 by the British colonial administrator Major Henry Douglas Warden (who named the settlement after the natural spring (the "fontein" in Afrikaans) that he found at the base of the Naval Hill (now the Franklin Game Reserve): the spring was surrounded by the most beautiful wildflowers (the "bloem" — the flower in Afrikaans): the most beautiful name of any South African city). Bloemfontein is the birthplace of J.R.R. Tolkien (John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (January 3, 1892 — September 2, 1973): the author of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" — the two best-selling fantasy novels in the history of world literature: Tolkien was born at Bloemfontein (where his father Arthur Tolkien managed a branch of the Bank of Africa) and lived here until the age of 3 when his mother Mabel took him and his younger brother Hilary back to England after Arthur Tolkien died of rheumatic fever in Bloemfontein in 1896).

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Cape Town

Cape Town (Kaapstad in Afrikaans, iKapa in Xhosa — population 4.6 million in the City of Cape Town metro — the legislative capital of South Africa, the second-most populated city after Johannesburg, and by nearly universal agreement the most beautiful city in Africa and one of the most beautiful cities in the world) sits at the southwestern tip of the African continent between two oceans (the Atlantic and the Indian), beneath the extraordinary geological monument of Table Mountain (the flat-topped sandstone plateau, 1,086m above sea level, that overlooks the city and was the first landmark sighted by the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias when he rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488). Cape Town's character is shaped by the convergence of extraordinary natural geography (the mountain, the two oceans, the Cape Floral Kingdom (the smallest and most biodiverse of the world's six floral kingdoms, with 9,600 plant species in an area the size of Portugal, 70% of which are endemic)), the extremity of South Africa's historical divisions (the Cape was the site of the first European settlement in sub-Saharan Africa (the Dutch East India Company (VOC) refreshment post of Jan van Riebeeck, 1652), the original point of entry of the Dutch and British settlers whose descendants became the Afrikaner people, and the location of Robben Island (the prison island in Table Bay where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment (1964–1982 — moved to Pollsmoor Prison in 1982))), and the extraordinary culinary diversity of the Cape Malay cuisine (the cooking of the enslaved people brought to the Cape from Malaysia, Indonesia, India and East Africa by the VOC — the Cape Malay curry, the boboties, the koesisters and the Malay pickles are the most distinctive and historically significant food tradition in South Africa).

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Durban

Durban is South Africa's most un-South-African city — a subtropical port with a massive Indian community (the largest Indian population outside of India) that has created a unique hybrid culture: Durban is the home of the bunny chow (a curry served in a hollowed-out loaf of bread), Durban curry (the most complex curry tradition in Africa), and the magnificent Indian Quarter markets. The beachfront Golden Mile and the Ushaka Marine World sit alongside the Victoria Street market, the BAT Centre for arts and the dramatic Valley of 1,000 Hills inland.

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Johannesburg

Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa and the economic engine of the African continent — a metropolitan area of 5.7 million people on the Witwatersrand ('Ridge of White Waters') at 1,750m altitude on the Highveld plateau, built on the world's richest gold reef (discovered 1886). Unlike Cape Town (a colonial harbour city) or Pretoria (a planned administrative capital), Johannesburg grew from a mining camp to a metropolis within 30 years — the fastest urban expansion in African history. The city carries the full weight of South African history: the Apartheid Museum (the finest civil rights museum in Africa, built on the site of a former Johannesburg fairground) documents the 46-year system of racial separation with extraordinary archival power; Soweto (the South Western Township — the largest Black urban settlement in Africa, where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu both lived on Vilakazi Street, the only street in the world to have housed two Nobel Peace Prize laureates) was the crucible of the anti-apartheid movement. Beyond history: the Cradle of Humankind (UNESCO — the Sterkfontein Caves 50km west, where hominid fossils including Mrs. Ples (Australopithecus africanus, 2.3 million years old) and Little Foot (Australopithecus, 3.67 million years old, the most complete pre-human fossil ever found) have been excavated since 1895) and the Maboneng Precinct (the most dynamic arts and creative district in sub-Saharan Africa). Best months: April–September (the Highveld dry season, clear blue skies, 15–22°C).

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Port Elizabeth

Port Elizabeth (officially renamed Gqeberha in 2021, the isiXhosa name for the Baakens River that runs through the city) is the fifth-largest city in South Africa and the capital of the Eastern Cape province — a city of 1.2 million on the coast of Algoa Bay in the Indian Ocean, known as "the Friendly City" for its English-speaking character and "the Windy City" for the south-westerly winds that make its beaches the finest wind-surfing location in South Africa. The city is the gateway to the Addo Elephant National Park (72 km north, one of the most successful conservation stories in African wildlife history — the population recovered from 11 elephants in 1931 to over 600 today, with the addition of a marine section covering the offshore islands that have African penguins, Cape fur seals and great white sharks), to the Garden Route (the most celebrated coastal drive in South Africa, 300 km west to Knysna and Mossel Bay) and to the Sunshine Coast of beaches (Jeffrey's Bay, 75 km west — one of the world's top 10 surfing spots, famous for the Supertubes break and the annual Rip Curl Pro). The city centre of Gqeberha has the Donkin Reserve (the hilltop park with a pyramid commemorating the wife of the colonial governor Sir Rufane Donkin, who founded the city in 1820 and named it after his dead wife Elizabeth), the 1820 Settlers Monument, the Victorian beachfront strip and the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium (one of the 2010 FIFA World Cup venues). The Eastern Cape is also the birthplace province of Nelson Mandela (born in Mvezo, 750 km northeast) and the heartland of Xhosa culture — the Xhosa people (AmaXhosa) and their click-consonant language are among the most culturally rich indigenous peoples in southern Africa.

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Pretoria

Pretoria (officially also Tshwane since the 2000 renaming controversy, though most still use the name Pretoria for the historic city) is South Africa's executive capital (the seat of the national government and the President's official residence, Union Buildings) and the capital of Gauteng province, a city of 750,000 in the Apies River valley 50 km north of Johannesburg at 1,338 m altitude. The city was founded in 1855 by Marthinus Pretorius (son of the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, who defeated the Zulu kingdom at the Battle of Blood River 1838) as the capital of the South African Republic (ZAR) — the Boer republic that controlled the Witwatersrand gold fields until the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) in which Britain defeated the Boers at enormous cost (the British pioneered the modern concentration camp during this war, interning 115,000 Boer civilians of whom 27,000 died, mostly children). Paul Kruger (Oom Paul), the legendary ZAR president, lived in Pretoria — his house is now the Kruger House Museum. The Voortrekker Monument (1949, the most controversial monument in South Africa — a massive granite fortress-style structure built by Afrikaner nationalists to commemorate the Great Trek and the Battle of Blood River, with an annual 16 December sunbeam event where light falls through a hole in the dome to illuminate an inscription) is one of the most powerful and contested architectural expressions of Afrikaner nationalism. Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratic president at the Union Buildings on 10 May 1994 — the ceremony was attended by 100,000 people and watched by 1 billion globally. The city is called the "Jacaranda City" for the 70,000 jacaranda trees (all descended from 2 trees imported from Brazil in 1888) that turn the city purple in October-November, making it one of the most photographically spectacular urban environments in Africa during bloom season.

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