Why it looks like this

Pretoria was founded by the Voortrekkers in 1855 and named for their leader Andries Pretorius; its plan is a simple, generous grid in a warm valley, centred on Church Square, where government and church faced each other. Herbert Baker's Union Buildings, on a hill east of the grid, sealed its role as South Africa's administrative capital in 1913.

Its signature is seasonal: jacarandas — an import from South America planted from the 1880s onward — line whole streets, and every October the grid blooms purple, giving Pretoria its nickname, Jacaranda City.