South Africa Country Info - Africa

Description and Basic Information

South Africa with its capital Pretoria is located in Africa (Southern Africa, at the southern tip of the continent of Africa). It covers some 1,219,913 square kilometres (slightly less than twice the size of Texas) with 43,786,000 citizens. Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, Tswana, Sotho, Southern and Tsonga are the languages used by people in South Africa (consider regional differences). Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho are bordering countries.

South Africa is located at the southern tip of Africa. The Orange River on the border to Namibia is a popular destination for rafting tours. Several tour operators launch 4-6 day trips in blow-up boats from Vioolsdrif with camping under the stars. South Africa has sites spread along its coast that are perhaps better known for sharks and other large marine life, but also have a wide range of endemic smaller fish and invertebrates. The coastal sites range from tropical coral reefs in the north of KwaZulu-Natal, where the fish are typical Indo-pacific tropical species, and very colourful, to cool temperate rocky reefs on the West Coast, where the fish life is relatively dull, but the invertebrates provide the colour.

Pictures from Capital (Pretoria)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About South Africa

The terrain offers vast interior plateau rimmed by rugged hills and narrow coastal plain. The average density of population is about 35 per km². The climate in South Africa can be described as mostly semiarid with subtropical along east coast, sunny days, cool nights. Possible natural disasters include prolonged droughts.

To reach someone in South Africa dial +27 prior to a number. There are 4,320,000 installed telephones. And there are 46,436,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".za". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 220V - 50Hz. The following list are the 9 regions/states in South Africa we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total South African population shrinked at a rate of -0.05% (or by 25,046 citizens). With 834,364 deaths and 963,030 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.26%. -153,712 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in South Africa: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.