Where to Stay in Pretoria, Gauteng

What is Pretoria known for?

Pretoria is known as South Africa's administrative capital. The seat of the national executive and of the foreign embassies, it fills each spring with the purple bloom of jacaranda trees along its wide avenues. Museums, galleries, and a student crowd give the centre its energy.

The Voortrekker Monument is among its best-known sights.

What are the main landmarks in Pretoria?

Pretoria carries its history in stone and memorial. The Voortrekker Monument, a granite block raised to the Afrikaner pioneers, and Freedom Park, the later national memorial, together hold both readings of the country's past. Melrose House adds a preserved older residence to the mix.

The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, the Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History, and the Pretoria Art Museum carry the city's main collections.

What is the history of Pretoria?

Pretoria was founded in 1855, decades before the gold rush that built its larger neighbour, the city of Johannesburg. It grew as a settler town in the interior of the country and became the capital of the Afrikaner republic that governed the region, a role that fixed its identity as a seat of government from the start. The Voortrekker Monument, raised generations later, looks back to those pioneer origins and the trek that brought them.

Government, not gold, built Pretoria. When South Africa was unified in the early twentieth century, Pretoria was chosen as the administrative capital, and it has held that role ever since. The executive branch, the foreign embassies, and the machinery of national government all settled along its wide jacaranda-lined avenues.

After apartheid ended, the city laid new national memory beside the old, and Freedom Park rose as a counterpart to the pioneer monument. Its museums, among them the Ditsong collections, the Pretoria Art Museum, and Melrose House, keep that layered story in plain public view. Through republic, union, and democracy, Pretoria has stayed the seat of South Africa's national government.

Where is Pretoria?

Pretoria lies in Gauteng, in the interior of South Africa. The city sits a short drive from Johannesburg, and the two run almost together as a single metropolitan sprawl across the province of Gauteng. Wide jacaranda-lined avenues run through the centre and out to the government quarter.

It stands inland, far from any coast.

What is the climate of Pretoria?

Pretoria has a warm subtropical climate softened by its inland setting. Rain comes in summer. The warmer half of the year, centred on the turn of the calendar, brings humid heat and afternoon storms, while the drier winter stays mild by day and cooler after dark.

Jacaranda blossom marks the change of season.

How do you get to Pretoria?

Pretoria is easiest to reach through Johannesburg. Most international travellers land at the region's main airport and continue on to Pretoria by highway, rapid rail, or coach in well under an hour. Long-distance trains and buses also serve the city.

Within Gauteng, road and rail tie it tightly to Johannesburg. Pretoria and Johannesburg nearly touch.