Potchefstroom

Many of the towns in the North West Province are steeped in Afrikaner and Voortrekker history. Potchefstroom is a good place to discover a littel background of this period of South Africa history. There are 14 mueseums and national monuments in town and 60 buildings of architectural and other interest. The andrew Carnegie Library, City Hall, the Goetz Fleishack Museum and the Main Potchefstroom Museum and Totius House are but a few.

Vredefort Dome

Vredefort Dome, approximately 120km south west of Johannesburg and 30km north east of Potchefstroom, is a representative part of a large meteorite impact structure, or astrobleme.  Dating back 2,023 million years, it is the oldest astrobleme found on earth so far. with a radius of 190km, it is also the largest and the most deeply eroded.

Vredefort Dome bears witness to the world's greatest known single energy event, which caused devastating global change, including, according to some scientists, major evolutionary changes. It provides critical evidence of the earth's geological history and is crucial to our understanding of the evolution of the planet. Despite their importance to the planet's history, geological activity on the earth's surface has led to the disappearance of evidence from most impact sites and Vredefort is the only example on earth to provide a full geological profile of an astrobleme below the crater floor.