50 Fun Facts About South Africa

South Africa has three capital cities. Which one is the administrative capital?

Cape Town is the legislative capital as seat of Parliament and Bloemfontein the judicial capital; the Constitutional Court sits in Johannesburg.

What is South Africa's largest and most populous city?

Cape Town and Durban come next; Johannesburg's stock exchange is the largest in Africa.

How many official languages does South Africa have?

It was 11 until South African Sign Language was recognised in 2023; Zulu is the most spoken first language.

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

The 2022 census put Zulu at 24.4%, Xhosa at 16.6% and Afrikaans at 10.6%.

Afrikaans developed mainly from which European language?

Around 90-95% of its vocabulary is Dutch in origin, and it was once dismissively called "kitchen Dutch".

How many provinces does South Africa have?

They include Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Which small kingdom is completely surrounded by South Africa?

Eswatini borders it to the northeast; the highest stretch of the Drakensberg forms the border with Lesotho.

Which two oceans meet off the South African coast?

The meeting point drifts between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point.

What is the actual southernmost point of Africa?

The Cape of Good Hope is about 150 km to the west-northwest; Dias originally called it the Cape of Storms.

Which Portuguese explorer first rounded the Cape of Good Hope, in 1487-88?

He named it Cabo das Tormentas; King John II renamed it for the hope of a sea route to India.

In what year did the Dutch establish the first European settlement at Table Bay?

Jan van Riebeeck set up a supply station for the Dutch East India Company that grew into Cape Town.

What is the name of the cloud that often covers Table Mountain's flat top?

It forms when the south-easterly wind pushes moist air up the slopes; the mountain is one of the New7Wonders of Nature.

Which two peaks flank Table Mountain's plateau above Cape Town?

With Signal Hill they form the amphitheatre of the City Bowl.

What is the highest peak in South Africa?

It stands 3,450 m in the Drakensberg; Thabana Ntlenyana, higher still, is over the border in Lesotho.

Which South African gorge is the third largest of its kind on Earth and, unusually, green?

It is in Mpumalanga and passes the Three Rondavels rock formation.

The country's oldest and largest national park is named after which man?

He proposed a game reserve on the Sabi River at a braai in 1892; it became the country's first national park in 1926.

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

Big-game hunters coined the term for the five hardest animals to hunt on foot.

What is South Africa's national bird?

Most of the remaining population lives in eastern and southern South Africa.

What is South Africa's national animal, famous for stiff-legged leaps called pronking?

The name means "jump buck" in Afrikaans, and it gives its name to the national rugby team.

How many years did Nelson Mandela spend in prison?

Eighteen of them were on Robben Island, before Pollsmoor and Victor Verster; he was released in 1990.

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

Rolihlahla, his given name, colloquially means "troublemaker"; Dalibunga was the name he received at his initiation.

In what year was South Africa's first fully democratic election held?

Mandela led the ANC to victory and became the first Black head of state; the new six-colour flag was adopted the same day.

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

The two negotiated the end of apartheid; Mandela received more than 250 honours in all.

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

It comes from an old Dutch word for seals; the island was a prison from the 17th century until 1996.

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

He was the first Black African to be Bishop of Johannesburg and Archbishop of Cape Town, and popularised the "rainbow nation".

In what year did the Union of South Africa become a republic?

The 1910 Union merged four British colonies; a 1961 referendum turned it into a republic with a State President.

The Second Boer War (1899-1902) was fought between the British Empire and which two republics?

Over 100,000 Boer civilians were put in concentration camps, where 26,000 died; the war ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging.

The discovery of which two minerals in 1867 and 1884 set off South Africa's Mineral Revolution?

Kimberley's diamond fields made Cecil Rhodes rich, and the city got electric street lights in 1882, second only to Philadelphia.

What is South Africa's currency?

It is Africa's most traded currency and gives the Krugerrand gold coin half its name.

What animal appears on the reverse of the Krugerrand gold coin?

First minted in 1967, it had over 90% of the world gold-coin market by 1980 and carries no face value.

How many colours does the South African flag have, a world first for a national flag when adopted?

Afrikaans speakers nicknamed it the Seskleur; three colours come from the old flag and three from the ANC's.

How many Rugby World Cups have the Springboks won, more than any other nation?

1995, 2007, 2019 and 2023; they were barred from the first two tournaments by the apartheid boycott.

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

Joel Stransky's extra-time drop goal won it, and Mandela handed the trophy to François Pienaar wearing a Springbok jersey.

South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the first in Africa. Who won it?

Spain beat the Netherlands 1-0 after extra time at Soccer City; the hosts became the first ever knocked out in the group stage.

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

At one metre it hits 120 decibels, the threshold of pain, and several sports bodies have banned it.

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

They won the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations on home soil.

What is a braai?

Staples include boerewors sausage, lamb chops, pap and chakalaka relish, and it is as much a social ritual as a way of cooking.

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

It was created in the 1940s by the city's large Indian community and contains no rabbit.

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

It is naturally caffeine-free and grows only in the fynbos of the Western Cape; the name has EU protected status.

South Africa is the world's largest producer of which two agricultural products?

It is also among the leading producers of citrus, wine, maize and wool.

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

Patient Louis Washkansky lived 18 days at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.

South Africa is the only country to have done what with its nuclear weapons?

Six devices were assembled between 1980 and 1990 and scrapped in 1991.

The Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO site in Gauteng, is famous for what?

Sterkfontein produced Mrs Ples and Little Foot, and nearby Rising Star Cave yielded Homo naledi.

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

She won a Grammy with Harry Belafonte in 1965 and spent decades in exile for opposing apartheid.

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

His memoir Born a Crime refers to his mixed-race birth being illegal under apartheid.

Which actress from Benoni became the first South African to win an acting Oscar, for Monster?

She grew up speaking Afrikaans and was later nominated for North Country and Bombshell.

In which year did the ANC lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since apartheid ended?

It won 40% and Cyril Ramaphosa formed a Government of National Unity with the Democratic Alliance and others.

Which South African city was the second in the world, after Philadelphia, to get electric street lights?

The diamond boomtown also built Africa's first stock exchange in 1881.

Roughly what is South Africa's population?

That makes it the sixth most populous country in Africa.

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

The semi-desert valley lies between the Outeniqua and Langeberg ranges and the Swartberg.