Johannesburg

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Introducing Johannesburg

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.

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Nelson Mandela Bridge.
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Nelson Mandela Bridge.

Lonely Planet photographer
  • Dave Hamman
  • Lonely Planet photographer
  • Telkom Joburg Tower.
  • Constitution Hill.
  • Display at Apartheid museum.
  • Street scenes: a busy street in central Johannesburg
  • Colourful buildings on the Randburg Waterfront created around a lake
  • Dancers in traditional dress at Gold Reef City.
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