Why Johannesburg Is Still Known As Africa’s City Of Gold

Some cities announce themselves through a skyline. Johannesburg reveals itself through a story. From the window of a descending aircraft, South Africa’s largest city appears unexpectedly green—an expanse of treetops interrupted by clusters of high-rises, mine dumps glowing faintly in the afternoon light, and the unmistakable geometry of a city that was never meant to exist here at all. There is no river curling through its centre, no glittering coastline framing its edges. Instead, Johannesburg rises from the highveld, built on a ridge of earth that changed its destiny in 1886, when gold was discovered beneath the Witwatersrand.