My hometown. I grew up here. Studied here. Live here. Known by many names – Egoli (city of gold), Jozi, Joburg. South Africa’s largest city, population numbers differ depending on which areas one classifies as being part of Joburg. According to Wikipedia, the urban agglomeration of Johannesburg has over 8 million inhabitants and is one of the fifty largest urban areas in the world.

It is also the largest man-made forest in the world. You can see a glimpse of that looking north. The best views are from halfway on Munro Drive on Houghton Ridge. I took this pic from a terrace on the 20th floor of a hotel in Sandton.

The Joburg CBD is one of my favourite places and also one of my least favourite (the traffic).

The streets of the CBD.

The Johannesburg Public Library. The building behind it (the Bank of Lisbon building) was gutted by fire three years ago. It was so sad – three firefighters died in the process of putting out the fire.

A mosque in the centre of town.

The Nelson Mandela bridge spanning the rail tracks and connecting the CBD with Braamfontein.

I love this pic of the trains. Depending on how they are parked the colours create a beautiful canvas. The elevated highway in the middle of the pic is the M2 and traverses the CBD connecting north with south. It is a bit of a bottleneck during peak hours though. Outside of the photo is Park Station, the main train station.

Coming in to land at OR Tambo International Airport, you’ll be treated to different views depending on which direction the landing is and which side of the plane you’re sitting on – you can get a stunning vista of the Joburg skyline or the southern suburbs, or the northern suburbs – the pics below show the gold mine dumps east of the city and land used for agriculture.

Joburg has some amazing coffee shops. My favourite is Cramer’s Coffee. It’s been around for ages and still going strong. All the pics I’ve taken have people in them so this one will have to do. You’ll just need to trust me on how amazing it is 😉

There is so much more to Joburg. The pics here are a mere 10% of the city and surroundings. When it’s safe to travel again, you just need to come for a visit and see for yourself.

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Blogging from A to Z posts – my favourite one so far is D is for Durban:
I is for Istanbul (Magnetic Istanbul)
H is for Hua Huin (party town)
G is for Ghent
F is for Flic en Flac
E is for Erawan Falls
D is for Durban (Memories)
C is for Chiang Mai
B is Bangkok
A is for Ayutthaya