DISCOVER Joburg's secret character with our features on the city's many diverse suburbs and places:
Suburbs
Newtown: Your guide
Newtown is being developed into a vibrant, mixed use area with a unique character based on existing cultural facilities.
Yeoville
FROM Time Square to House of Tandoor, every taste is catered for. Saturday in Yeoville is the place to party.
Linden
Tim Truluck's historical map of Linden gives interesting insights into the farms that gave rise to the suburb
The caring suburb of Malvern
Malvern, east of the city, is a caring, friendly suburb, where the residents are getting together to improve their suburb and set a standard of neighbourliness that other Joburgers could learn from.
Parkhurst
Parkhurst is one of the city's oldest residential suburbs. You can read all about its history, and other interesting facts, in a new brochure, the first of many that will eventually be combined in a publication of all Joburg's suburbs.
Barkhurst, Nappy Valley … or Parkhurst?
A newly published brochure, 'Resident's Guide to Parkhurst', has everything you need to know about the suburb, from community information to municipal services - including some quirky snippets of history.
Joburg's most secret place
There's a street in Joburg that is friendly and cosy, but its residents want to keep it secret.
History of Auckland Park
Columnist Neil Fraser finds out about historic Auckland Park, once a fashionable 'country' area favoured by the rich
Rock around the block: Stone houses of Mountain View
A block in Hope Road, Mountain View, consists of a dozen rather wonderful stone houses, built 100 years ago using thousands of tons of rock quarried from the site.
Fietas: a close-knit community living not far from the city centre
Few Joburgers have heard Fietas, a close-knit community living not far from the city centre - until the apartheid axe fell in the seventies. But parts of Fietas remain standing and give a sense of what it once might have been.
A walk down Victorian Parktown
Take a walk past the grand old mansions in Parktown, and take a peek inside some of them. The Parktown & Westcliff Heritage Trust conducts weekly tours of old Johannesburg, and one of those tours is Victorian Parktown.
Rietfontein, a nature reserve within the suburbs
Rietfontein offers the hectic, jolling Joburger a quiet, green space with small game in which to unwind and take in those little natural wonders that we are usually too busy to notice.
Greenside: History of Jo'burg's only dry suburb
There is a suburb in Johannesburg that is "dry". Not because there's no water available to the residents, but because Louw Geldenhuys, farmer, politician and a deeply religious man, who owned the farm Braamfontein over 100 years ago, didn't want alcohol supplied to blacks working on the mines.
Soweto, city of contrasts
Soweto is a city of contrasts: luxurious mansions across the road from tin shanties, green fields and streams around the corner from piles of garbage, the biggest public hospital in the world with the world's highest HIV infection rate, and a friendliness and cheerfulness that disguises a high unemployment rate.
Alexandra
Alexandra township survived demolition when other townships like Sophiatown were flattened and rebuilt for whites. They were both "black spots" in the middle of white suburbia, so why did Alexandra survive and others didn't?
Fordsburg
Fordsburg boasts a number of confectioneries that offer a delicious array of goodies, all baked on the premises and very fresh.
Northcliff
One of the city's most impressive ridges, Northcliff, has lost its towering presence as homes and townhouses have encroached further and further up its sides and summit. But its 360º view of Johannesburg is still largely intact
Wemmer Pan
Wemmer Pan, once the scene of happy times, then changed times with crime and vandalism rampant, has once again been given a new lease on life - the dam is dotted with rowers and the park is green again.
Observatory
The site of the city's first observatory is still largely as it was when it was built in 1905, still in use but open to the public once a month, to admire the stars above the Gauteng sky.
Orange Farm
Orange Farm is a squatter camp but also a land of dreamers - the hard-working kind who day by day defy their poverty to testify to the triumph of the human spirit.
Ivory Park
The sprawling shack settlement of Ivory Park once epitomised hopelessness. But since 1999, small but steady dents have been made in that despair, thanks to initiatives that have looked more closely at the damaged environment and how people could live more harmoniously with it.
Landmarks
Joburg's first trees
One hundred and seventeen years ago Johannesburg was a dusty, rocky, barren veld. Nowadays it's a man-made urban forest with six million trees. How did this happen?
Jozi's urban forest now at 10m trees, and growing
Market square
Today's government precinct, owned by Gauteng province, was once the town's market square and produce market, and the bustling centre of Johannesburg. Its legacy lives on in City Deep
Joburg's castles
Johannesburg can boast four "castles" around the city and suburbs, the oldest being almost as old as the city itself, at 105 years old, and the newest 11 years old.
Guildhall Pub
The Guildhall Pub has sat for 115 years on the edge of Johannesburg's original market square, now the Library Gardens.
Rand Club
The Rand Club in Loveday Street, one of the city's oldest and loveliest buildings, is still largely a place where men hang out, enjoying one another's company almost exclusively
Regina Mundi
Soweto's largest Catholic Church played a pivotal role in the township's history of resistance against apartheid. Now the church opens its doors to streams of visitors keen to witness the scars it still bears
The Rand Club
A toast to the Rand Club as it serves the city more inclusively today than probably at any other time in its long history
Jo'burg's oldest buildings
The town of Johannesburg was born in 1886, after gold was discovered on the farm Langlaagte. The town grew rapidly, and many of the early buildings were torn down and replaced. But some of those buildings and farmhouses remain, a monument to the city's pioneers and farmers.
Somerset House
There're dozens of old buildings around the CBD. One of them, Somerset House, although a little neglected, is still functioning, and signs of its former splendour, including its basement, are still visible.
Hillbrow Tower: Joburg's own Table Mountain
Portrait of the most prominent landmark in Johannesburg, the Hillbrow Tower, built for just R2-million.
Ponte: rent the best view in town
One of Joburg's most visible landmarks, Ponte, has made a comeback after years of notoriety. The flats have been spruced up and secured, and the spectacular penthouses, available for rent, offer the best city views in southern Africa.
Mai-Mai: visit a genuine African bazaar
The Mai Mai bazaar - a complex which boasts a rich concentration of traditional herbs and healers - is to be restored and promoted as a prime tourist destination in the city.
The lovely Lonehill Koppie
Lonehill Koppie stands out on the outskirts of Johannesburg as a special place covered with huge ancient boulders that have a particular presence. The Koppie has tremendous historical significance in a suburb that is actively combating crime.
Brenthurst, Joburg's breathtaking secret garden
In the heart of Parktown is a spectacular garden of 45 acres, employing 45 gardeners, one gardener for every acre. The gardens are part of the Brenthurst estate, belonging to the Oppenheimers, and are a model of organic gardening.
Carlton Hotel
Joburg's Carlton Hotel - an icon of the high life for years - fell on hard times and was closed in 1997.
