South Africa

South Africa

South Africa is at the southern tip of Africa. The warm Indian Ocean flows along the east of the country. The colder Atlantic flows along the west. This gives the country a spectacular range of biodiversity.

The eastern coastline is lush and subtropical with humid summers. The southern coastline and the Cape of Good Hope have a Mediterranean climate and is also green. The great inland Karoo plateau, where rocky hills and mountains rise from scrubland, is dry and gets more so going north-west into the Kalahari desert. There are frosts and occasional snowfalls in the mountainous Drakensberg and Lesotho plateau.

   CAPITAL Pretoria
   MAJOR CITIES Johannesburg , Cape Town , Durban ,
Port Elizabeth , East London
   PROVINCES
   AREA 5 X the size of Great Britain at 1.2 million sq km
  
NEIGHBOURS
   COASTLINE 2 798km. Indian & Atlantic Oceans meet at the southwestern corner
   ELEVATION Highest point is 3 408m at Njesuthi in the Drakensberg
   POPULATION 44.2 million. More than 50% live in urban areas
   CULTURES
  • Nguni People (Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi) - 67%
  • The Sotho-Tswana, Tsonga & Venda - 12%
  • Afrikaners & English - 9.6%
  • Coloured - 8.9%
  • Indians - 2.5%,
  • The Khoi and San
   LANGUAGES 11 official languages. Zulu most spoken at 23.8%.
English fifth most spoken at 8.2%
   RELIGIONS Christian 68%, Muslim 2%, Animist 28.5%, Hindu 1.5%