Hotels in Johannesburg This is the largest city in South Africa - the financial and commercial heart of the country and home to the imposing Stock Exchange building. Business is business, but pleasure is pleasure - in the affluent suburbs of Sandton, Rosebank and Nelson Mandela Square you will find opulent shopping centres, boutiques and vibrant pavement cafes. To gain a different kind of lifestyle, venture into the vast, world-renowned township of Soweto for an eye opening tour of the laid-back drinking dens - the "shebeens" and try local cuisine. To gain a perspective on the history of South Africa, see the Apartheid Museum a fascinating, if disturbing, record on not-so-long-ago South Africa.