During the long years of racial apartheid it was a no-go zone off Africa’s southern tip, run so secretively that photographs of its most famous prisoner could never emerge.



Now Robben Island, a UN World Heritage site, is the latest and one of the most unusual additions to Google’s Street View. Users can follow in Nelson Mandela’s footsteps all the way into the spartan five sq metre prison cell where he languished for 18 years.

In contrast to the draconian censorship of the white-minority regime, Google was invited to tour with its Trekker backpack-mounted camera taking 360-degree panoramic photos of the island, which has variously served as a leper colony, quarantine station, mental hospital and political prison. It is now a museum and tourist attraction with a small resident population.

A screengrab from the Google Street View tour of Robben Island showing Nelson Mandela’s cell door. Photograph: Guardian

Street View’s images include the house where Robert Sobukwe, the founder of the Pan Africanist Congress, was kept in solitary confinement, the quarry where political prisoners laboured and Mandela’s eyes were damaged by light and dust, and the courtyard where Mandela gardened a small plot and covertly began writing his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.

The Google project, which includes a virtual tour guided by former political prisoner Vusumzi Mcongo, comes after recent setbacks at Robben Island including complaints over the quality of the museum and breakdowns of the ferry that brings visitors from Cape Town.

Sibongiseni Mkhize, the chief executive of the Robben Island Museum, said: “The reason Robben Island is now a museum is to educate people about the part of South Africa’s heritage that is embodied in the island’s multi-layered history. Together with Google, we are making this heritage accessible to people all over the world.”

Robben Island prison’s courtyard in the mid-1960s. Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex

The initiative was welcomed by a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, Ahmed Kathrada, a former inmate and close friend of the late Mandela. “Not being able to see or interact with children for 20 years was possibly the most difficult thing to endure during my time on the island,” he said. “There’s a poetic justice that children in classrooms all over the world will now be able to visit Robben Island using this technology.”

Google said it would also develop notes for teachers who will be using this interactive tour as an educational tool. Luke McKend, the director of Google South Africa, added: “Robben Island is a symbol of South Africa’s fight for freedom. We’re excited about helping people to learn more about this heritage and to explore the island from any device, anywhere in the world.”