Five South African cities will host only first-round matches in next year's World Cup, so they will hope to get some of the biggest teams and best games when the draw is made on Friday.
Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Polokwane and Rustenburg are all at high altitude. The first three could be bitterly cold at night during the tournament although Rustenburg has mild, sunny, southern hemisphere winters. Nelspruit is in the hot, dry lowveldt and should be comfortable.
Most of the World Cup managers are thought to be planning training camps around Pretoria, Rustenburg, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg to prepare their players for the thinner air.
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Following are brief profiles of the group-stage venues:
PRETORIA
South Africa's administrative capital, where presidents are sworn in at the imposing hilltop Union Buildings. The city was headquarters of the apartheid state and Nelson Mandela's 1994 inauguration there had great symbolic significance. Despite still being the capital, this is a small, quiet city, overshadowed by nearby Johannesburg. The approach from the south is dominated by the hulking Voortrekker Monument, a symbol of Afrikaner rule, which commemorates the 1838 defeat of 12,000 Zulus by a small Boer force.
LOFTUS VERSFELD stadium, one of the country's oldest, has been revamped and has a capacity of 50,000. It is the home of two of South Africa's big soccer teams, the Mamelodi Sundowns and SuperSport United, as well the Blue Bulls rugby club. Six matches will be played here.
BLOEMFONTEIN
South Africa's judicial capital, seat of the country's highest court and capital of Free State - a staunchly Afrikaans province - it has many stately old buildings.
Bloemfontein, which means "Fountain of Flowers" in Dutch, is in the centre of the country near mountainous Lesotho.
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