Why go
Read the skyline alongside the region's older history. Melville Koppies' iron-smelting furnace challenges the idea that mineral working began with European prospectors, while downtown's commercial buildings belong to the city that grew after the 1886 gold discovery. The distinction changes how you understand Johannesburg's origins.
The full story
Long before Johannesburg became a mining town, the surrounding region was home to San communities and later to Sotho-Tswana settlements. Farming, livestock keeping and metalworking supported these communities. Stone-walled settlement remains and smelting sites show that the landscape had a history of skilled production before the gold rush. Melville Koppies preserves an iron-smelting furnace within Johannesburg. During the early nineteenth century, warfare and displacement changed settlement across the wider region. Voortrekkers subsequently established settlements around Rustenburg and Pretoria, and the area that became Johannesburg formed part of the South African Republic. The discovery of gold at Langlaagte in 1886 transformed the Witwatersrand. Prospectors and workers arrived from elsewhere in southern Africa and from overseas, turning a small settlement into a rapidly growing town. Control of this wealth intensified tensions between the Boer government and Britain. The failed Jameson Raid in 1896 preceded the Second Boer War of 1899–1902; British forces occupied Johannesburg in 1900.