Opened on 22 March 1904 on land once known as the Sachsenwald timber plantation, Johannesburg Zoo sits alongside Zoo Lake on Jan Smuts Avenue in Parkview. Mining magnate Percy Fitzpatrick donated its first animals, two lions and a leopard, and the zoo has since grown to around 55 hectares housing roughly 2,000 animals across some 320 species. It’s known for breeding white lions and was the only South African zoo to have bred Siberian tigers, and thanks to the terms of the original land donation it remained open to all races even through the apartheid era. Today it draws well over 500,000 visitors a year and remains one of Johannesburg’s most established family attractions and a popular spot for outdoor events.