What South Africa Has to Offer

Location and Size:

South Africa is located at the southern-most tip of the African continent. It is bordered by two oceans: to the east, the warm, Indian Ocean and to the west, the Atlantic Ocean. South Africa shares its borders with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

South Africa has 3000 kilometres of beautiful coastline and is 1 219 090 km² which is bigger than Germany, France and Italy combined. South Africa offers reliable, warm holiday destinations in a variety of locales all year round.

Provinces, Towns and Cities:

The country is divided into nine provinces, namely Northern Cape, North West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Western Cape.

The capital of South Africa is Pretoria in the Gauteng province. Parliament is located in Cape Town. The judicial capital is Bloemfontein, in the Free State province.

The major cities are Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, followed by Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein and East London.

People and Culture:

South Africa's total population according to the 2002 census is approximately 45 million, of which 53,7% is urbanised.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu memorably christened South Africa "The Rainbow Nation of God" due to its diverse and unique population, composed of the following groups:

The San, The Nguni People, European and Asian immigrants, and The British.

There are 11 official languages, namely English, Afrikaans, Ndebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, North Sotho, South Sotho, seSwati, seTswana, seTsonga, and tshiVenda.

Other languages include Arabic, German, Greek, Gujerati, Hebrew, Hindi, Portugese and the 'clicking' language of the San. English is understood almost everywhere.