Kimberley - Big Hole (Kimberley Mine Museum)

Kimberley's main tourist attraction is the Kimberley Mine Museum, an open-air museum centered on the "Big Hole".

The Big Hole (the Kimberley Mine) is the world's largest man-made hole, with a depth of 800m/.5mi, a diameter of 470m/1,542ft and a circumference of 1.5km/.9mi. Between 1871 and 1914 22.6 million tons of earth and rock were excavated from the mine for a yield of 2,722kg/6,000lb of diamonds. Visitors can look down from a viewing platform into the mine, now filled with water to 150m/500ft below ground level, and picture what it was like when thousands of men were working in the hole and hauling the rock up to the surface with cables. By 1889, when the workings had reached a depth of 400m/.25mi, opencast mining was no longer possible. Later the work was increasingly mechanized, the first winding tower being installed in 1892.

On the west side of the Big Hole is a museum village of almost 50 buildings (some original and some reproductions), representing Kimberley as it was at the time of the diamond rush.