Johannesburg is the most populous city in South Africa and the third most populous city in Africa, behind Cairo and Lagos. Local residents have nicknamed the city "Jo'burg", "Jozi" and "eGoli". Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng Province, the wealthiest province in South Africa, and the site of the South African Constitutional Court. Johannesburg is famous for Soweto which is an acronym for the large number of townships that the apartheid government established south-west of the city to accommodate the large number of people who went there to seek employment. It is one of the newest major cities in the world.

Johannesburg is the site of a large-scale gold and diamond trade due to its location on the mineral-rich Witwatersrand mountain range. Johannesburg International Airport, the largest and busiest airport in Africa and a gateway for international air travel to and from the rest of southern Africa also serve Johannesburg.

Johannesburg is the economic and business hub of South Africa, it remains quite tourist friendly. It features a variety of world-class hotels, shops, malls, restaurants and casinos, as well as safe drinking water, adequately maintained roads and infrastructure on par with other major global cities. English is spoken everywhere as a primary language.

The city also has several art museums, such as the Johannesburg Art Gallery, which featured South African and European landscape and figurative paintings. The Museum Africa covers the history of the city of Johannesburg, as well as housing a large collection of rock art. The Market Theatre complex attained notoriety in the 1970s and 1980s by staging anti-apartheid plays, and has now become a center for modern South African playwriting.