South Africa is situated on the Southern tip of the African Continent. It shares neighbouring borders with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. South Africa encloses both Swaziland and Lesotho. South Africa has over 2700 km of COastline shared between the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast and the warm Indian Ocean on the east coast.
South Africa is home to multi-cultural melting pot of 55 million beautiful people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions.
Although English is widely spoken and is used for informational signage, South Africa celebrates diversity in language with a total of eleven official languages. These languages are Afrikaans, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Siswati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga and English.
Enshrined in the South African constitution is the right for all people to practice their religion free from persecution. The most practiced religions in South Africa include Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism.
The Rand is the official whole currency unit in South Africa. A Rand is the equivalent of 100 cents. Currency denominations include 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent and 50 cent coins, as well as 1, 2 and 5 Rand coins. 1 Rand is the equivalent of 100 cents. Bank notes include denominations of R10, R20, R50, R100 and R200.
You will be glad to know that in South Africa your tip should be at least 10-15% of your bill. In some restaurants, you will notice that the tip is included in the total.
Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula
Cape Town is Southern Africa’s most beautiful, most romantic and most visited city. Its physical setting is extraordinary, something its pre-colonial Khoikhoi inhabitants acknowledged when they referred to Table Mountain, the city’s most famous landmark, as Hoerikwaggo – the mountains in the sea. Even more extraordinary is that so close to the national park that extends over much of the peninsula, there’s a pumping metropolis with a nightlife that matches the city’s wildlife.
The Northern Cape
The vast Northern Cape, the largest and most dispersed of South Africa’s provinces, is not an easy region to tackle as a visitor. From the lonely Atlantic coast to Kimberley, the provincial capital on its eastern border with the Free State, it covers over one-third of the nation’s landmass, an area dominated by heat, aridity, empty spaces and huge travelling distances. The miracles of the desert are the main attraction – improbable swaths of flowers, diamonds dug from the dirt and wild animals roaming the dunes.
The most significant of these surprises is the Orange (or Oranje) River, flowing from the Lesotho Highlands to the Atlantic where it marks South Africa’s border with Namibia.
The Western Cape
The most mountainous and arguably the most beautiful of South Africa’s provinces, the Western Cape is also the most popular area of the country for foreign tourists. Curiously, it’s also the least African province. Visitors spend weeks here without exhausting its attractions, but frequently leave slightly disappointed, never having quite experienced an African beat. Of South Africa’s nine provinces, only the Western Cape and the Northern Cape don’t have an African majority; one person in five here is African, and the largest community, making up 55 percent of the population, are coloureds – people of mixed race descended from white settlers, indigenous Khoisan people and slaves from the East.
Although the Western Cape appears to conform more closely to the developed world than any other part of the country, the impression is strictly superficial.
KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa’s most African province, has everything the continent is known for – beaches, wildlife, mountains and accessible ethnic culture. South Africans are well acquainted with KwaZulu-Natal’s attractions; it’s the leading province for domestic tourism, although foreign visitors haven’t quite cottoned on to the incredible amount packed into this compact and beautiful region. The city of Durban is the industrial hub of the province and the country’s principal harbour.
Free State
The Maloti Route, one of South Africa’s most scenic drives, skirts the mountainous eastern flank of the Free State, the traditional heartland of conservative Afrikanerdom, which lies landlocked at the centre of the country. If you’re driving from Johannesburg to Eastern or Western Cape, the Eastern Highlands, which sweep up to the subcontinent’s highest peaks in the Lesotho Drakensberg, are worth the detour. Bloemfontein, the capital, is only worth visiting if you are passing through, but once there you’ll find very good guesthouses, restaurants and museums.
Gauteng
Gauteng is South Africa’s smallest region, comprising less than two percent of its landmass, yet contributing around forty percent of the GDP. Home to nearly ten million people, Gauteng is almost entirely urban; while the province encompasses a section of the Magaliesberg Mountains to the east and the gold-rich Witwatersrand to the south and west, the area is dominated by the huge conurbation incorporating Johannesburg, Pretoria and a host of industrial towns and townships that surround them
North West Province
South Africa’s North West Province is one of the country’s least-understood regions – renowned, among tourists at least, for the opulent Sun City resort and the Big Five Pilanesberg National Park, but not much else. Few people venture beyond these attractions to explore this area in greater depth; consequently, it can be curiously rewarding to do so. The old-fashioned hospitality of the myriad little dorps scattered throughout the region, and the tranquillity of the endless stretches of grassland and fields of mielies (sweetcorn) make a refreshing change after hectic Johannesburg and Pretoria.
North West Province extends west from Gauteng to the Botswana border and the Kalahari Desert.
Mpumalanga
Mpumalanga, “the land of the rising sun” to its Siswati- and Zulu-speaking residents, extends east from Gauteng to Mozambique and Swaziland. To many visitors the province is synonymous with the Kruger National Park, the real draw of South Africa’s east flank, and one of Africa’s best game parks. Kruger occupies most of Mpumalanga’s and Limpopo Province’s borders with Mozambique, and covers over 20,000 square kilometres – an area the size of Israel or El Salvador.
Limpopo
Limpopo Province is considered by many to be South Africa’s no-man’s-land: a hot, thornbush-covered area caught between the dynamic heartland of Gauteng to the south and, to the north, the Limpopo River, which acts as South Africa’s border with Zimbabwe and Botswana. The real highlights of Limpopo are often overshadowed by the busy N1 highway, South Africa’s umbilical cord to the rest of the continent, which dissects the province.
