Inner City & Southern Suburbs

This is heart of Johanneburg/Joburg/eGoli/Jozi.  This is where it all began.  As the site of the original mining tent camps of the Gold Rush in the late 1800s, the inner city quickly spread & developed, with high-rise residential apartment blocks, executive office buildings and exclusive clubs.  A century later, congestion & high rentals caused businesses to decentralise to other nodes - like Rosebank, Randburg and Sandton ... and the inner city slid into decay and degradation.

Today, the inner city has seen huge urban renewal projects and many parts of the city have been lovingly restored to their former glory - or upgraded to the latest in modern architecture and style with loft apartments and commercial office parks.  

There are still problem areas which will take time to resolve, however, the inner city still has some of the most important facilities and attractions - such as many of the theatres, the University of the Witwatersrand, the Coca-Cola Stadium (former Ellis Park), the Johannesburg Art Gallery and the Oriental Plaza shopping precinct (pictured left).

It's also home to the main bus terminus: Ghandi Square on Main Street and the province's only inland container depot at City Deep.  It's also the central cog for major highways leading off in every directions

Throughout its ups and downs, the inner city has remained the headquarters of many businesses and most of the country's major banks.




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Top 22 Attractions:

• Soccer City 2010 Stadium (near Soweto)
• Newtown Cultural Precinct & Mary Fitzgerald Square
• Market Theatre & Restaurant Complex
• Oriental Plaza, Fordsburg
• Johannesburg Civic Theatre, Braamfontein                                                                                                           Gold Reef City Theme Park
  
• Carlton Centre Panorama (view from 50 floors up), Main Street
• Johannesburg Art Gallery & Sculpture Park, Joubert Park
• Gold Reef City Theme Park & Amusement Park, Ormonde
• Gold Reef City Casino & Theatre Complex
• The Apartheid Museum, near Gold Reef City
• The City Hall with magnificent organ pipes
• Nelson Mandela Bridge (2003) linking Braamfontein & Newtown
  
• MuseuMAfriKA & Bensusan Museum of Photography, Newtown
• Ghandi Square & Bus Terminus, Harrison Street
• Museum of Man & Science, Mai Mai muti, herbs & homeopathic remedies
  
• Johannesburg Exhibition Centre (Nasrec), near Soweto
• Adler Museum of Medicine, Wits Medical School, Parktown
• Constitution Hill & Old Fort, Braamfontein
• Johannesburg Planetarium, Wits University Campus, Braamfontein
• SA Breweries Museum, Newtown
• Origins Centre, Wits University East Campus
• Turffontein Race Course (Horses)

Useful sites: Johannesburg News Agency and Johannesburg Tourism