Parktown North is a suburb of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. It is one of the older residential areas of the Northern Suburbs, having been created as a residential area for the poorer relatives of the

Randlord Randlords were the capitalists who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries in South Africa in its pioneer phase from the 1870s up to World War I. A small number of European financiers, largely of the same generation, gained control of th ...

s who had built their mansions on

Parktown Parktown is a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, the first suburb north of the inner city (both chronologically and geographically). It is affectionately known as one of the Parks, others including Parkview, Parkwood, Westcliff, Park ...

Ridge during the early days of the Rand gold rush (during the 1890s). It takes its name from being North of

. The suburb has many old colonial-style houses, and manages to maintain a village atmosphere, despite being near to one of the busiest roads in the city,

Jan Smuts Avenue Jan Smuts Avenue is a major street in Johannesburg, South Africa. It begins in Randburg, and passes through important business areas like Rosebank. It passes the Johannesburg Zoo, Zoo Lake and Wits University before becoming Bertha Street, an ...

. Parktown North is in close proximity to the

Gautrain Gautrain is an higher-speed express commuter rail system in Gauteng, South Africa, which links Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kempton Park and O.R. Tambo International Airport. It takes 15 minutes to travel from Sandton to O.R. Tambo Interna ...

and has many bus stops that transport commuters to Gautrain stations. Many suburbs of Johannesburg are laid out as grids with numbered streets in one direction and numbered avenues intersecting perpendicularly. Parktown North is one of the only suburbs in Johannesburg to have only numbered avenues with no numbered streets. It is not a grid and the avenues run in all directions. The suburb is built around a small spring and lake, however this is not visible from the street and is hidden from the public separating the gardens of three private houses. Parktown North is a popular dining out venue for Johannesburg residents. Most notably 7th Avenue is home to many of the area's top restaurants. Parktown North has an active Residents Association (PNRA) that looks after its many interests around the suburb from Heritage, building and electrical issues, to power outage and maintenance issues.

References

Johannesburg Region B {{Johannesburg-stub