Sun City is a make-believe “lost city.” The Palace of the Lost City has imitation ruins of ancient temples and life-size statues of animals, such as elephants and cheetahs. There is also an artificial beach, complete with wave-making machinery.

At the time, gambling was illegal in South Africa, and Kerzner dreamed up an imaginary kingdom complete with a fanciful legend of a lost city and a lost tribe as the basis for his resort. Today the resort lies in a tranquil basin of an extinct volcano in the Pilanesberg adjacent to South Africa’s rich platinum belt.