Johannesburg City Hall, Johannesburg

Johannesburg City Hall was constructed between 1910 and 1914. This building has enjoyed National Monument status since 1979. The style is known as Edwardian Baroque, with distinctive features like a neo-Renaissance half-dome entrance and a portico featuring Ionic columns. A two-half design places the Town Hall and municipal offices on opposite sides.

There is a paved square in front of the main entrance, with obelisks and a fountain. Visitors will appreciate the collection of mosaics and the marble used to decorate the vestibule. Two staircases lead up to the gallery area.

The Town Hall area features decorative gilding, plaster, and woodwork that are still impressive to see. One of the highlights of this area is a Norman & Beard of Norwich-built pipe organ that was used for recitals during the 1920s. This organ once enjoyed status as the largest organ in Africa and the second-largest organ in the Southern Hemisphere.

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia and Chris Eason.

Want to visit this sight? Check out these Self-Guided Walking Tours in Johannesburg. Alternatively, you can download the mobile app "GPSmyCity: Walks in 1K+ Cities" from Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The app turns your mobile device to a personal tour guide and it works offline, so no data plan is needed when traveling abroad.

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Create Your Own Self-Guided Walk to Visit This Sight

Sight Name: Johannesburg City Hall
Sight Location: Johannesburg, South Africa (See walking tours in Johannesburg)
Sight Type: Attraction/Landmark
Guide(s) Containing This Sight:

Walking Tours in Johannesburg, South Africa

Create Your Own Walk in Johannesburg

Creating your own self-guided walk in Johannesburg is easy and fun. Choose the city attractions that you want to see and a walk route map will be created just for you. You can even set your hotel as the start point of the walk.

Historical Buildings Walking Tour

Since founded in 1886, following the discovery of gold on what used to be farmland, Johannesburg has evolved into an economic powerhouse of Africa. While most of the city's early buildings adopted architectural styles from its colonial parent, the British Empire, some of them also emulated the prowess of New York City. Let's take a closer look at some of these construction marvels.

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Tour Duration: 1 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 0.7 Km or 0.4 Miles

Johannesburg Introduction Walking Tour

Johannesburg, or Joburg, or "City of Gold", as it is often informally called, is South Africa's largest city. The area's original inhabitants included hunter-gatherers from the San tribes and the Ndebele, a tribe associated with the Zulu. A gold rush in 1884 lead to Johannesburg's founding in 1886. Within a decade, the population had grown to 100,000 inhabitants.

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Tour Duration: 1 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 2.9 Km or 1.8 Miles

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