Find a Cemetery in Johannesburg
Johannesburg has 35 cemeteries and 2 crematoria. These fall under the custodianship of Johannesburg City Parks.The city is growing and developing at an alarming rate. There is the need for more burial space. How are you going to find a cemetery in Johannesburg if you want to visit some of the famous burial sites?
Johannesburg City Parks ‘Find a Cemetery’ website allows you to browse the full list of cemeteries, which have been listed alphabetically.
You can also call ‘Cemeteries’ call centre on 011 712-6602 for more information, or download a brochure on cemeteries and crematoria in Johannesburg.
A Cemetery in Johannesburg has areas of Remembrance
Joburg’s cemeteries date back to 1888, and today if you take time to wander through the different graveyards, you’ll find the names of many politicians, TV characters, struggle heroes and ordinary South Africans.
Johannesburg cemeteries have large lawn areas, trees and gardens and the upkeep and maintenance of these cemeteries and crematoria are a mammoth task.
City Parks isn’t only responsible for the upkeep of cemeteries, but street verges, parks, green belts and nature reserves in and around the city. Luckily, the design and landscaping of modern South African cemeteries as become more natural – no longer those neat, cold rows of gravestones with neat lawns in between and nothing much else.
Johannesburg City Parks looks upon cemeteries as areas of remembrance to honour the deceased, and that today’s cemeteries provide the opportunity to create green spaces within the city. This is why they are often referred to as ‘cemeteries for the living’.
Many Cemeteries Opened in New Burial Grounds
Which Cemetery in Johannesburg are you wanting to visit or know more about? Did you know that the first small cemetery, established between Bree, Diagonal and Harrison streets in the CBD no longer exhists. The city of Johannesburg grew so fast that the bodies there were exhumed and re-interred in 1987.
● By 1888, the first regional cemetery, Braamfontein Cemetery, was marked out. With the Anglo Boer War, thousands of Boers died in concentration camps, many of them buried in Suideroord.
● In 1910 the first grave was dug in the New Cemetery in Brixton, and at that time, mourners wanted different locations for each religion, so a Jewish section was established, a Muslim section, and sections for for Chinese, Blacks, the military, police and other religious divisions.
● In 1972, the Avalon Cemetery, south of the CBD, was established, holding the remains of some heroes of the struggle against apartheid, including Joe Slovo and Helen Joseph.
● The Waterval Cemetery in Midrand opened in 2006 and a second new cemetery, Diepsloot Memorial Park, was opened in April 2007.This cemetery received a silver award in the whole city environmental management category.
Find a Cemetery in Johannesburg with Ease
If you want to find one of these cemeteries in Johannesburg, why not try a site such as Find a Cemetery, allowing you to search by region. Their online database of cemeteries in Johannesburg makes it easy for you to find he cemetery and also find out more about it.
City Parks is also wanting to capture data on cemeteries that date back to the 1880s as well, when the first person in Johannesburg was buried.
In fact, the general manager of technical support and training for City Parks says that the system is user-friendly for those wanting to search for their deceased. With the data that has been captured it will be possible to search for funeral and burial information within an hour of the burial.
This database of cemetery information will be of value to tourists who may want to visit the cemeteries and graves of famous people buried in the city.
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All info was correct at time of publishing