Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Cape Town
- Region
- Africa, Southern Africa
- Population
- 64,747,319 (2025)
- Area
- 1,219,912 km²
- Currency
- South African rand (ZAR)
- Languages
- Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Pedi, English
- Calling code
- +27
- Internet domain
- .za
- ISO codes
- ZA, ZAF, 710
- Time zone
- UTC+2:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- #### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
South Africa covers about 1,219,912 square kilometres. By area it ranks 26th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Mali and a little larger than Colombia. It shares a land border with 6 neighbours: Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini, Zimbabwe. Its centre lies at about 29° south, 24° east, in the southern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 64.7 million people live in South Africa (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 24th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.79 percent of the world's people. On average there are 53 people to each square kilometre. About 64 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 66 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Pedi, English, Tswana, Southern Sotho, Tsonga. A person from South Africa is called South African.
Money and economy
The currency is the South African rand (code ZAR, symbol R). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 427 billion (2025), which is about US$ 6,598 for each person (2025).
Time
South Africa uses one time zone, UTC+2:00 (Africa/Johannesburg). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Johannesburg | 9,418,183 |
| Cape Town | 4,772,846 |
| Durban | 3,338,026 |
| Pretoria | 2,112,693 |
| Soweto | 1,695,047 |
| Gqeberha | 1,050,078 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.