The Best Sight in Johannesburg, South Africa

Background Illustration for Sights

Johannesburg epitomizes South Africa's paradoxical makeup—it's rich, poor, innovative, and historic all rolled into one. And it seems at times as though no one actually comes from Johannesburg. The city is full of immigrants: Italians, Portuguese, Chinese, Hindus, Swazis, English, Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Zulus, Xhosas. The streets are full of merchants. Traders hawk skop (boiled sheep's head, split open and eaten off newspaper) in front of polished glass buildings as taxis jockey for position in rush hour. Sangomas (traditional healers) lay out herbs and roots next to roadside barbers' tents, and you never seem to be far from women selling vetkoek (dollops of deep-fried dough) beneath billboards advertising investment banks or cell phones.

The Greater Johannesburg metropolitan area is massive—more than 1,600 square km (618 square miles)—incorporating the large municipalities of Randburg and Sandton to the north. Most of the sights are just north of the city center, which degenerated badly in the 1990s but is now being revamped.

To the south, in Ormonde, are the Apartheid Museum and Gold Reef City; the sprawling township of Soweto is just a little farther to the southwest. Johannesburg's northern suburbs are its most affluent. On the way to the shopping meccas of Rosebank and Sandton, you can find the superb Johannesburg Zoo and the South African Museum of Military History, in the leafy suburb of Saxonwold.

Origins Centre

City Center

A giant world map that is handmade of aluminum wire depicts the migration of hominins at the entrance of Origins Centre. This modern museum (situated at the University of the Witwatersrand) explores the development and culture of modern humans over the past 100,000 years, and in particular rock art and stone tools—of which southern Africa has the oldest in the world. Origins is spacious and elegantly designed across three stories that house permanent and temporary exhibitions, which cater to schoolkids and visiting professors alike. It was renovated in 2021 and boasts interactive multimedia displays and photographs that are enhanced by a free Augmented Reality app (OriginsCentreAR), which can be used with the museum’s free Wi-Fi. Origin Shop, the museum’s gift shop, sells high-quality crafts made by the Khomani San in the Northern Cape as well as hard-to-source books on rock art in southern Africa. If you don’t make it to the museum, you can experience most of its exhibitions via its websites, thanks to Google Arts & Culture.