Nelson Mandela: Mvezo to the Union Buildings

Nelson Mandela was born in this small village on the banks of the Mbashe River, near Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, on 18 July 1918. He was given the forename Rolihlahla, a Xhosa word colloquially meaning "troublemaker". His father was later deposed as chief of Mvezo, and the family moved on. Today the village is the site of the Nelson Mandela Birthplace Museum.

Location precision: The pin marks the village of Mvezo; the sources do not name an exact house.

Visitor guidance: The Nelson Mandela Birthplace Museum stands in the village.

After his father was deposed as chief of Mvezo, the boy grew up in Qunu. In his autobiography Mandela describes it as the place where he spent the happiest moments of his childhood, and in retirement he came back. On 15 December 2013 he was buried here, after a state funeral, on family land at a spot he had chosen himself. Mvezo, where he was born, lies near Qunu.

Location precision: The pin marks the village of Qunu; the burial site is on private family land.

In the 1940s Mandela studied Latin and physics at the University of Fort Hare for almost two years, before leaving after a conflict with a college leader. He later wrote that for young black South Africans like him it was "Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Yale, all rolled into one." The same campus produced other opponents of apartheid, among them Oliver Tambo and Govan Mbeki. Fort Hare is still a working university in the town of Alice.

Visitor guidance: A working university campus in Alice; check access with the university before visiting.

Bought in 1961 as a safe house for political fugitives, this Rivonia farm soon became the headquarters of MK. Mandela lived here under the assumed identity of a farmworker called David Motsamayi. On 11 July 1963 security police raided the farm and arrested 19 members of the underground; papers found there incriminated Mandela, who was tried with the others and sentenced to life imprisonment. The farm is now a museum with the original Freedom Charter.

Visitor guidance: A museum on George Avenue in Rivonia, north of Johannesburg.

In 1964 Mandela and his co-accused were taken to Robben Island, where he stayed for 18 years. In Section B he had a damp concrete cell measuring 8 by 7 feet and a straw mat to sleep on. By day the prisoners broke rocks, then worked a lime quarry whose glare permanently damaged his eyesight; at night he studied for a law degree. The prisoners also ran a "University of Robben Island", lecturing each other on their own fields.

Location precision: The pin marks Robben Island as a whole, not the Section B cell block.

Visitor guidance: Tours to the island depart from Cape Town.

Mandela was moved to Victor Verster Prison, near Paarl, on 9 December 1988 and lived in a private house inside the compound, where he finished his law degree. He served another 14 months before his release on 11 February 1990. As he walked out a free man, the moment was broadcast live across the world. The house is a national heritage site, and a statue of Mandela stands just outside the gates of what is now Drakenstein Correctional Centre.

Visitor guidance: The statue stands outside the gates of a working prison; the house itself is inside the compound.

On 10 May 1994 Mandela was inaugurated here as South Africa's first democratically elected president. His address spoke of "newborn liberty". The sandstone buildings were designed so that the wings and twin towers stand for the two languages, English and Afrikaans. Since 2013 the terraced gardens have held a 9-metre bronze statue of Mandela, unveiled on 16 December, and the amphitheatre carries his name.

Visitor guidance: The gardens, statue and amphitheatre are the parts to see; the buildings house government offices.