97 Fun Facts About South Africa

Which of South Africa's three capital cities is its administrative capital?

Pretoria became the administrative capital in 1910, and in 1899 it held a young Winston Churchill as a prisoner of war until he escaped by stowing aboard freight trains.

Which is South Africa's most populous city?

Johannesburg includes Soweto, where the 1976 student uprising began against a rule making Afrikaans a medium of instruction in Black schools.

What became South Africa's 12th official language in 2023?

Sign language became official in July 2023, yet it is not one uniform language, since signers in different regions of South Africa use different dialects.

Which language is spoken by the largest share of South Africans as a first language?

Zulu is the home language of 24.4% of South Africans, yet it became a national official language only in 1994.

Afrikaans developed mainly from which European language?

Afrikaans grew from a 17th-century Dutch dialect, and a 1925 Act made it an official language in its own right rather than a mere Dutch vernacular.

Which South African province is the smallest but most populous?

Gauteng is the smallest province yet home to about a quarter of South Africans, and it draws more migrants from other provinces than anywhere else.

Which country is completely surrounded by South Africa?

Lesotho's founder, King Moshoeshoe I, made his base on the mountain plateau of Thaba Bosiu, which attacking armies repeatedly failed to storm.

Which two oceans meet off the South African coast?

The Atlantic and the Indian bring contrasting currents, and the cold, plankton-rich Atlantic water off the west coast is why South Africa's fishing industry centres there.

What is the actual southernmost point of Africa?

Cape Agulhas, not the Cape of Good Hope, is Africa's southern tip, and its reef has wrecked so many ships that nearby Bredasdorp keeps a Shipwreck Museum.

Which Portuguese explorer first sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, in 1488?

Bartolomeu Dias wanted to press on to India, but his weary crew refused, so he turned back and only saw the cape itself on the voyage home.

Who founded Cape Town's 1652 refreshment station?

Jan van Riebeeck later had a hedge of wild almond planted as a barrier around the young colony, and sections of it still survive in Kirstenbosch.

What is the cloud that often spills over the flat top of Cape Town's best-known mountain called?

The tablecloth forms when wind forces moist air up the mountain's slopes into colder air, where the moisture condenses into cloud.

Which two peaks flank the flat-topped mountain above Cape Town?

Devil's Peak and Lion's Head flank the plateau, and hiking up Lion's Head on full-moon nights has become a popular Cape Town tradition.

Which mountain range holds South Africa's highest peaks?

The Drakensberg is a World Heritage Site for its culture as well as its nature, because its caves and rock shelters hold thousands of San rock paintings.

South Africa's first national park is named after which man?

Paul Kruger, a Boer president, had his government protect the area in 1898 to curb overhunting, and it became a national park in 1926.

Which five animals make up Africa's "Big Five"?

Lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo became the Big Five as a hunters' term for the animals most difficult and dangerous to hunt on foot.

What is South Africa's national bird?

Blue crane feathers once adorned notable warriors, and the ANC based its highest honour, Isitwalandwe, on the wearing of a crane feather.

What is South Africa's national animal?

The springbok once travelled in herds of up to millions, but confinement to farms and game reserves has made such mass treks rare.

What is Mandela's Xhosa clan name, by which South Africans affectionately call him?

Madiba is his clan name, while his English name, Nelson, was given by his first schoolteacher, Miss Mdingane, following the custom of the time.

Which holiday marks South Africa's first democratic election in 1994?

Freedom Day marks the 1994 vote, when nine new provinces replaced the four old provinces and the black homelands.

Which president released Mandela in 1990 and later shared the Nobel Peace Prize with him?

F. W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC in a speech to Parliament on 2 February 1990, and Mandela walked free nine days later.

What does the name of Robben Island, where Mandela was held for 18 years, mean?

Robben Island is named after the seals once plentiful around it, and the Xhosa leader Makana drowned there while leading an escape from its prison.

Who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Desmond Tutu wanted a medical career but could not afford the training, so he became a schoolteacher and later an Anglican priest.

On becoming a republic in 1961, South Africa left which body?

South Africa withdrew its bid to stay in the Commonwealth in 1961, after other members criticised apartheid, and rejoined only in 1994.

Colonel Robert Baden-Powell became a British hero by defending which town through a 217-day Boer War siege?

The relief of Mafeking in 1900 set off such wild celebrations in Britain that 'to maffick' became a word for celebrating boisterously.

The discovery of which two minerals, in 1867 and 1886, set off South Africa's Mineral Revolution?

Diamonds and gold transformed the economy, and voting rights for foreign workers on the new goldfields became Britain's pretext for war in 1899.

What is South Africa's currency?

The rand was Botswana's national currency too until 1976, when Botswana left the rand zone and launched its own currency, the pula.

Which famous fantasy author was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892?

J. R. R. Tolkien never grew up in South Africa, because his father died there in 1896 and the family stayed on in England.

Who became South Africa's first Black Test rugby captain in 2018?

Siya Kolisi grew up in the township of Zwide, often going hungry, and went on to lift the Rugby World Cup in 2019 and 2023.

Whom did South Africa beat 15-12 in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final at Ellis Park?

New Zealand fell to Joel Stransky's extra-time drop goal, and Mandela, wearing the home team's jersey, handed over the trophy.

Which country won the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the first held in Africa?

Spain lost its opening game 1-0 to Switzerland, yet went on to win the title with Andrés Iniesta's goal late in extra time of the final.

What is the plastic horn that filled the 2010 World Cup stadiums with a droning B-flat called?

The vuvuzela was so loud that some shops in South Africa ran out of earplugs during the 2010 tournament.

What is the nickname of South Africa's national men's football team?

Bafana Bafana won the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations on home soil, in a tournament South Africa hosted only because it replaced the original hosts, Kenya.

What is a braai?

A braai is a barbecue so central to South African life that since 2005 a campaign has promoted Heritage Day, 24 September, as National Braai Day.

Bunny chow, a hollowed-out loaf filled with curry, comes from which city?

Bunny chow has no rabbit in it, because 'bunny' probably comes from 'bania', a name for the merchant caste whose traders sold it in Durban.

What does the name of the herbal tea rooibos mean in Afrikaans?

Rooibos means red bush, after the reddish-brown colour its leaves take on as they oxidise, although an unoxidised green rooibos is made too.

Which red wine grape did Stellenbosch professor Abraham Perold create by crossing two French varieties?

Pinotage takes its name from its parents, Pinot Noir and Cinsaut, which South Africans then called Hermitage.

Which South African surgeon performed the world's first human heart transplant in 1967?

Christiaan Barnard's patient died of pneumonia 18 days after the operation, yet the transplant turned Barnard into an international star almost overnight.

What did South Africa eventually do with the nuclear weapons it had secretly built?

South Africa dismantled them before joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991, and only admitted in 1993 that it had ever built its six bombs.

The Taung Child, a fossil skull found in South Africa in 1924, belongs to which early human group?

Australopithecus was named from the Taung Child by Raymond Dart, but it took over 20 years for scientists to accept Africa's importance in human evolution.

Which South African singer, nicknamed "Mama Africa", had a 1967 hit with "Pata Pata"?

Miriam Makeba's passport was revoked in 1960, so she could not go home for her mother's funeral, and her exile lasted 30 years.

Which South African comedian hosted The Daily Show from 2015 to 2022?

Trevor Noah called his memoir Born a Crime because his parents' interracial relationship was illegal under apartheid when he was born in 1984.

Which actress from Benoni, South Africa, won the Best Actress Oscar for Monster?

Charlize Theron won the award for playing the real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a role for which she transformed her appearance.

Which party came second in South Africa's 2024 election, then joined the ANC's government?

The Democratic Alliance, the main opposition party, agreed to govern with the ANC because the ANC had lost its majority for the first time since 1994.

Which South African city grew up around the Big Hole, a vast mine dug with picks and shovels?

Kimberley's Big Hole began as a flat-topped hill, which prospectors dug away and then kept digging until the mine was 240 metres deep.

Which beach near Simon's Town is home to a colony of African penguins?

Boulders Beach's penguins only settled there in the early 1980s, and their numbers soared partly because False Bay was closed to commercial fishing.

The Little Karoo is famous for farming which animal around the town of Oudtshoorn?

Ostriches made Oudtshoorn rich enough to build its famous 'feather palaces', until the feather boom ended with a market collapse in 1914.

Which future independence leader was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg for refusing to leave first class?

Mahatma Gandhi arrived as a young lawyer and stayed for 21 years, forming in South Africa the political ideas he later took home.

Which future British prime minister escaped from a Boer prisoner-of-war camp while working as a newspaper war reporter?

Winston Churchill slipped his captors by stowing away on freight trains and hiding in a mine, and the escape made headlines back in Britain.

In South African English, which everyday piece of street furniture is commonly known as a robot?

A traffic light is a robot to South Africans, a usage borrowed from Britain, where the word was briefly fashionable for the new signals and then died out.

Which pop star recorded Waka Waka with the South African band Freshlyground as the 2010 World Cup's official song?

Shakira borrowed the chorus from Zangaléwa, a 1986 hit by the Cameroonian band Golden Sounds that she had heard as a child in Colombia.

Which global restaurant chain began in 1987 when two friends bought a South African takeaway called Chickenland?

Nando's was started by Fernando Duarte and Robert Brozin, who tried the peri-peri chicken there and renamed the place with a nickname for Fernando.

Which fish, thought extinct for 66 million years, turned up alive in a trawler's catch off South Africa in 1938?

The coelacanth was spotted in the haul at East London by museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, and its genus, Latimeria, was named after her.

Which southern African word for shared humanity, often translated as 'I am because we are', also names a Linux system?

Ubuntu appears in the closing lines of South Africa's 1993 interim constitution, which called for understanding rather than vengeance after apartheid.

Which American singer defied a cultural boycott to record his 1986 album Graceland with South African musicians?

Paul Simon was condemned by anti-apartheid campaigners, yet Graceland won the Grammy for Album of the Year and introduced Ladysmith Black Mambazo to the world.

Which British rock band took its name from the South African football club where Leeds captain Lucas Radebe began?

Kaiser Chiefs changed a single letter of Kaizer Chiefs in tribute to the Leeds United captain, having earlier released an album under the name Parva.

Who gave the future South African president Nelson Mandela his English first name when he was about seven?

His schoolteacher, Miss Mdingane, handed every pupil an English name on the first day of class; his birth name, Rolihlahla, is often rendered as troublemaker.

Which tech billionaire, born in South Africa in 1971, sold a video game called Blastar when he was twelve?

Elon Musk was paid about $500 for Blastar by a computer magazine, and he left South Africa for Canada in 1989.

What do South Africans call the air-dried, cured strips of meat often compared with American beef jerky?

Biltong is dried without heat, unlike jerky, and was traditionally hung for a fortnight in winter after being treated with vinegar and spices.

South Africa's Bushveld Complex holds about 75 percent of the world's resources of which valuable metal?

Platinum grains panned from a river bed in 1924 led the geologist Hans Merensky to the rich layer now named the Merensky Reef.

Which nickname for post-apartheid South Africa was coined by an Anglican archbishop after the 1994 election?

Rainbow Nation was taken up within weeks by Nelson Mandela, who used the image in a speech during his first month as president.

Which adventure sport has drawn thrill-seekers to South Africa's 216-metre Bloukrans Bridge since 1997?

Bungee jumping made the arch famous, though it was built in the early 1980s simply to carry the N2 highway over the Bloukrans gorge.

Which 1980 South African comedy film begins with a Coca-Cola bottle falling from a plane into the Kalahari?

The Gods Must Be Crazy follows a hunter-gatherer who sets out to give the troublesome bottle back, and it became the most successful South African film made up to then.

Which flower is South Africa's national bloom and gives the country's cricket team its nickname?

The king protea has the largest bloom of its genus, up to 30 cm across, and survives wildfires by resprouting from a thick underground stem.

Nelson Mandela International Day, when people give 67 minutes to helping others, falls each year on which occasion?

His birthday, 18 July, was adopted by the United Nations in 2009, and the 67 minutes stand for the 67 years he spent fighting for social justice.

Vilakazi Street, once home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners, is a tourist draw in which South African township?

Soweto, whose name is short for South Western Townships, named the street after Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, a writer who once lived there.

Which Black Consciousness leader, who died in police custody in 1977, was played on film by Denzel Washington?

Steve Biko's story reached the cinema through his friend Donald Woods, a newspaper editor whose 1978 biography of him was the basis of Richard Attenborough's 1987 movie.

Which deputy of Nelson Mandela succeeded him as South Africa's president in 1999 and served until 2008?

Thabo Mbeki stepped down in September 2008 after his own party's executive recalled him, months before his second term was due to end.

Who won South Africa's 1948 general election on a promise of apartheid and then turned it into law?

The National Party then governed without a break for 46 years, until Nelson Mandela took office in May 1994.

What name is given to the Boer settlers who left the British-ruled Cape Colony in wagon trains from 1836?

Voortrekkers means pioneers or pathfinders, and their migration into the interior to escape British administration is remembered as the Great Trek.

Which 1963–64 court case, which followed a police raid on a farm hideout, jailed Nelson Mandela for life?

The Rivonia Trial took its name from the suburb where Liliesleaf Farm stood, and Mandela opened the defence with a three-hour speech from the dock.

Which Cape Town neighbourhood was declared whites-only in 1966 and demolished, displacing over 60,000 residents?

District Six was renamed Zonnebloem in 1970, and most of the people forced out of it were resettled on the Cape Flats.

Which South African prime minister helped found the League of Nations and later signed the United Nations Charter?

Jan Smuts was the only signer of the Treaty of Versailles who also signed the UN Charter, having fought the British as a Boer commando officer.

Which prime minister, called the architect of apartheid, was stabbed to death in South Africa's parliament in 1966?

Hendrik Verwoerd was killed by Dimitri Tsafendas, a parliamentary messenger who was then locked up until his own death in 1999.

Which mining magnate's statue was removed from the University of Cape Town in 2015 after a month of student protests?

Cecil Rhodes had donated the land the university was built on, and the Rhodes Must Fall campaign soon spread to Oriel College, Oxford.

Which South African novelist, the author of Disgrace, won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature after two Booker Prizes?

J. M. Coetzee had moved to Australia in 2002, the year before the Nobel, and became an Australian citizen in 2006.

Which 1948 novel by Alan Paton follows a village priest and a farmer brought together by a murder?

Cry, the Beloved Country sold over 15 million copies in Paton's lifetime and was turned into a musical, Lost in the Stars, with music by Kurt Weill.

Which 2005 film about a young gang leader who finds a baby in a stolen car won South Africa an Oscar?

Tsotsi, adapted from a novel by the playwright Athol Fugard, was the first South African film to win the Academy Award for international feature.

Which South African trumpeter topped the American pop chart in 1968 with the instrumental Grazing in the Grass?

Hugh Masekela took up the trumpet at 14, and Louis Armstrong, hearing about the boy's band, sent him one of his own horns as a gift.

Which hymn, composed by Enoch Sontonga in 1897, supplies the opening verses of South Africa's national anthem?

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika became a liberation song across the continent, and its melody also carries the national anthems of Tanzania and Zambia.

Which South African singer won the first Grammy for Best African Music Performance in 2024 with her hit Water?

Tyla's Water was also the first song by a South African soloist to enter the US Billboard Hot 100 in 55 years.

Which South African house-music style, marked by deep log drum basslines, became a global sound in the early 2020s?

Amapiano takes its name from a local word for pianos, and it blends keyboard melodies with deep house, soul and kwaito.

Which percussive South African dance began as a code tapped out by mine workers who were forbidden to talk?

Gumboot dancers slap and stamp their rubber boots, and many routines began as parodies of the guards who ran the mines and barracks.

Which South African dish of spiced minced meat is baked under a savoury egg-and-milk topping?

Bobotie was adopted by the Cape Malay community, and a 1933 recipe calls for milk-soaked bread and a curry sauce sharpened with lemon juice.

Which South African golfer, nicknamed the Black Knight, was the first non-American to win the career Grand Slam?

Gary Player won nine major championships and more than 160 professional tournaments, and has designed over 400 golf courses around the world.

Which barefoot South African-born runner collided with Mary Decker in the 1984 Olympic 3,000 m final?

Zola Budd had been rushed through British citizenship to get round the sporting boycott of South Africa, and she faded to seventh after the collision.

Which South African ultramarathon of about 88 km, first run in 1921, is the world's oldest and largest?

The Comrades Marathon was conceived by Vic Clapham, a First World War veteran, to honour fallen soldiers, and its route switches between an uphill and a downhill run.

Which small fish migrates in its billions up South Africa's east coast each winter, pursued by dolphins and sharks?

The sardine run is herded into tight bait balls by thousands of dolphins, and its sheer biomass may rival East Africa's wildebeest migration.

Which half-striped relative of the zebra, once common in South Africa's Karoo, was hunted to extinction by the 1880s?

The quagga's last captive animal died in Amsterdam in 1883, and a century later it became the first extinct animal to have its DNA analysed.

What nickname was given to the fossil skull that Robert Broom found in South Africa's Sterkfontein caves in 1947?

Mrs Ples takes the nickname from Plesianthropus, meaning near-man, the scientific name Broom first gave the nearly complete adult skull.

The Vredefort structure in South Africa's Free State is the largest verified example on Earth of which landform?

The impact crater was formed about two billion years ago and may have been up to 300 km across before erosion wore it away.

Which ANC president, living under a government ban, became the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for 1960?

Albert Luthuli was honoured for leading the non-violent struggle against apartheid, and the state had earlier deposed him as a traditional leader over his ANC role.

At which 1879 battle did Cetshwayo's warriors overwhelm an invading British column, killing more than 1,300 troops?

Isandlwana was the British Army's worst defeat by a force with far simpler weapons, and it ended Cetshwayo's hopes of a negotiated peace.

Which Ferrari driver won the 1979 Formula One title to become the first world champion from Africa?

Jody Scheckter clinched the title at the Italian Grand Prix, and he is the only driver ever to have won a Grand Prix in a six-wheeled car.

In 2006 South Africa became the first country in Africa, and the fifth in the world, to legalise what?

Same-sex marriage followed a constitution that had been the first in the world to protect sexual orientation as a human right.

Which South African sprinter broke Michael Johnson's 400 m world record from lane eight at the 2016 Olympics?

Wayde van Niekerk ran 43.03 seconds to erase a mark that had stood since 1999, from a lane whose staggered start is normally a disadvantage.

Which backyard gadget did Ferdinand Chauvier launch in Springs, South Africa, in 1974 as the Kreepy Krauly?

The pool cleaner crawls around unaided, vacuuming up debris, and Chauvier was a hydraulics engineer who had emigrated to South Africa from the Belgian Congo.