South Africa

South Africa: capital Pretoria, population 64.7M, area 1,221,037 km². The 24th most populous country, in Africa. Facts, map, neighbours and more.

South Africa reaches from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean around a mineral-rich interior and the Cape's concentrated plant life. Fossil caves and San rock paintings carry records far older than its port, mining and democratic eras. Gumboot rhythms, marabi chords, Ndebele geometry and twelve official languages make cultural expression inseparable from work, place and public life.

• The Dutch East India Company established a refreshment station at Table Bay in 1652, beginning Cape Town's growth around a fort, gardens and passing ships.
• The 21.25-carat Eureka Diamond, found near Hopetown in 1867 and later cut to 10.73 carats, helped trigger the Kimberley diamond rush.
• The Witwatersrand gold rush began in 1886 and rapidly produced Johannesburg, a mining settlement that became a municipality within eleven years.
• South Africans voted in the first national election with universal adult suffrage from 26 to 29 April 1994; the new assembly elected Nelson Mandela president.

• Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison, shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk and became South Africa's president after the 1994 election.
• Christiaan Barnard performed the first human-to-human heart transplant at Cape Town's Groote Schuur Hospital on 3 December 1967; patient Louis Washkansky survived 18 days.
• Miriam Makeba and Harry Belafonte won the 1966 Grammy for Best Folk Performance with An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba, an album sung in Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho.
• J. M. Coetzee became the first writer to win the Booker Prize twice, for Life & Times of Michael K in 1983 and Disgrace in 1999, before receiving the 2003 Nobel.

• The Cradle of Humankind covers 47,000 hectares of limestone caves; at Sterkfontein, Robert Broom and John Robinson found the 2.3-million-year-old 'Mrs Ples' skull in 1947.
• The Vredefort impact structure formed 2.023 billion years ago and originally measured an estimated 170 to 300 kilometres across; UNESCO listed its surviving dome in 2005.
• Maloti-Drakensberg's caves and shelters contain more than 35,000 San rock paintings at roughly 500 sites, the densest such group south of the Sahara.
• The Cape Floristic Region contains more than 9,000 vascular plant species, about 69 percent endemic, within the smallest of the world's six recognised floral kingdoms.

• South African Sign Language became the country's twelfth official language on 19 July 2023, joining eleven spoken languages first recognised together by the 1996 constitution.
• Gumboot dance grew in South African gold mines where workers stamped, slapped boots and rattled bells to communicate above drilling noise when speech was restricted.
• Esther Mahlangu covered a BMW 525i with Ndebele geometric patterns in 1991, becoming the first woman commissioned for the BMW Art Car series.
• Marabi emerged around Johannesburg between the 1890s and 1920s, using pedal organs and repeated chord cycles to sustain dancing in shebeens and shape township jazz.

What is the capital of South Africa?

The capital of South Africa is Pretoria.

What is the population of South Africa?

South Africa has about 64.7M people — the 24th most populous country in the world.

How big is South Africa?

South Africa covers 1,221,037 km², making it the 24th largest country by area.

Which region is South Africa in?

South Africa is in Southern Africa, Africa.