Year inscribed: 1999
Location: Western Cape, 33º 48' S 18º 22' E
Type: Cultural heritage
Robben Island is most famous for being the place where Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected president of South Africa, was imprisoned for 18 of his 27 year jail term. The island is testament to the triumph of democracy and freedom over oppression.
Lying just 11 kilometres offshore from the city of Cape Town, the small windswept island is now home to the world-renowned Robben Island Museum -- one of South Africa's top historical attractions.
Robben Island was not always a prison, nor was it originally cut off from the Cape Peninsula. Thousands of years ago when sea levels where much lower, the island was an inhabited area connected to the mainland.
In the mid-1600's, Robben Island was first made a jail by Dutch colonists of the Cape who incarcerated opponents of colonial rule on the island -- it was also used as a leper colony, and as a mental hospital from 1846 to 1931, as well as a training and defence base during World War II.
Robben Island later became infamous as a maximum-security prison for anti-apartheid activists. From the mid-1960s the prison held many leaders of the African National Congress (ANC), , including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Ahmed Kathrada, as well as Robert Sobukwe, the founder of the Pan Africanist Congress.
Following the unbanning of the ANC and other opponents of apartheid in 1990, all the political prisoners were released from the island. Robben Island ceased to be a jail when the last common-law prisoners left in 1996.
Just three years later, in 1999, the World Heritage Committee declared Robben Island a World Heritage site of cultural significance.
"The buildings of Robben Island bear eloquent testimony to its sombre history," the committee noted, adding that the island "symbolises the triumph of the human spirit, of freedom, and of democracy over oppression."
Safaris include the history, fauna and flora and the shipwreck history of Robben Island, as well as first-hand recapping from ex-political prisoners surviving apartheid. Robben Island is a place synonymous with leaders and for the struggle of freedom in South Africa and a place where you can see the reflection of triumph of the human spirit. Robben Island is a place, where people can learn from and acknowledge the history of our world.
South Africa's seven World Heritage Sites are:
 Cradle of Humankind
Greater St Lucia Wetland Park
Robben Island
uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park
Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape
Cape Floral Region
Vredefort Dome
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