432 Paul Kruger Street, Pretoria

Formally the Transvaal Museum of Natural History, the National Museum was founded in 1892. It was originally buried away in a tiny room next to the clock tower on the top floor of Parliament House, with a collection so small, it hardly justified the hiring of any permanent employees. But with the increasing number of donations of items made, fossils of plants and animals, and items of European origin – particularly those introduced by Boers and Voortrekkers – the collection rapidly expanded. Today the collection at the National Museum of Natural History is housed in a magnificent sandstone building, its entrance dominated by dinosaur skeletons, filled with cavernous displays. Exhibits include hominid fossils from the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, including Mrs Ples one of the country’s top celebrities and the nickname attributed to a fossil skull believed to represent a distant relative of all humankind; fossils of amphibians, fish, reptiles and plants from the Karoo.