The only country with three capital cities, and it has eleven official languages.
๐ฟ๐ฆ
South Africa
Republic of South Africa
Africa
ยท Southern Africa
0Population
1.22Mkmยฒ of land
$6KGDP / person
Cape TownCapital
- ISO codes
- ZA ยท ZAF
- Density
- 48 /kmยฒ
- Languages
- Afrikaans, English, Southern Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu
- Currency
- South African rand (ZAR)
- Dial code
- +27
- Internet domain
- .za
- Time zones
- 1
- Coastline
- Has a coast
- Map centre
- 29.7090ยฐ S, 23.6660ยฐ E
- Demonym
- South African
- UN region
- Southern Africa
- Economy
- Emerging region: G20
- Income group
- Upper middle income
- Total GDP
- $351.43B
- Sovereignty
- Independent ยท UN member
- Borders
- 6
Highlighted in teal. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, or hit ๐ for the globe.
By the numbers
How South Africa stacks up against all 242 mapped countries.
Population
24th
of 242 ยท 0.76% of world population
Land area
26th
of 242 ยท 0.81% of world land
GDP per person
136th
richest of 242 by output per person
Population density
158th
most crowded of 242
Ten facts about South Africa
The first is hand-written; the rest are worked out from this country's own figures.
Population is about 58,558,270 people, the 24th largest of the 242 countries mapped here - roughly 0.76 per cent of everyone alive.
Covers 1,221,037 kmยฒ, making it the 26th largest country here - about 5 times the size of the United Kingdom.
Population density is about 48 people per kmยฒ.
The capital is Cape Town, at 33.92ยฐ S, 18.43ยฐ E, with a metropolitan population of about 3,215,000.
Shares land borders with 6 countries: Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and eSwatini (and 1 more).
Has its own coastline and direct access to the open sea.
Keeps a single time zone, Africa/Johannesburg.
The currency is the South African rand (ZAR, symbol R).
Has 11 official languages: Afrikaans, English, Southern Ndebele, Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho (and 6 more).
Local time
Live, from PHP's IANA database.
Africa/Johannesburg
--:--:--
UTC+02:00
Cities
The largest places we hold coordinates for. Click a row to fly the map there.
1
Johannesburg
Gauteng
26.1681ยฐ S, 28.0281ยฐ E
3.44M
2
โ
Cape Town
Western Cape
33.9181ยฐ S, 18.4330ยฐ E
3.22M
3
Durban
KwaZulu-Natal
29.8631ยฐ S, 30.9781ยฐ E
2.73M
4
โ
Pretoria
Gauteng
25.7050ยฐ S, 28.2275ยฐ E
1.34M
5
Port Elizabeth
Eastern Cape
33.9681ยฐ S, 25.5981ยฐ E
1.02M
6
โ
Bloemfontein
Orange Free State
29.1200ยฐ S, 26.2299ยฐ E
463.06K
7
Welkom
Orange Free State
27.9700ยฐ S, 26.7300ยฐ E
431.94K
8
East London
Eastern Cape
32.9700ยฐ S, 27.8700ยฐ E
338.63K
9
George
Western Cape
33.9500ยฐ S, 22.4500ยฐ E
174.58K
10
Worcester
Western Cape
33.6400ยฐ S, 19.4399ยฐ E
127.6K
๐ Peaks
Table Mountain
1,085 m
๐งญ Worth the trip
Cape Town
City
A city wedged between a flat-topped mountain and two oceans, with penguins on a suburban beach.
Land neighbours
6 countries share a border with South Africa.