Map of South Africa

South Africa is located in Africa. Its territory lies in the southern and eastern hemispheres, centred near 29.0° S, 24.0° E. It shares land borders with 6 countries — Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe — and also has its own coastline. Within Africa, a continent of 54 countries bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, South Africa is mapped here in full with its borders, capital and key facts.

South Africa shares land frontiers with the following 6 countries. Select any neighbour to open its own map.

South Africa covers about 1,221,037 km² (471,445 sq mi). That makes it the 24th-largest country in the world by area and the 9th-largest in Africa, larger by area than 45 of the continent’s 54 countries.

It is home to a population of roughly 63,100,945, the 24th-largest in the world and the 6th-largest in Africa, accounting for about 4.3% of the continent’s people. With that land area, South Africa has an average population density of about 52 people per km². Among the 54 countries of Africa it stands 6th by population and 9th by area.

The seat of government is Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Cape Town, and the official currency is the South African rand (ZAR, R), and the main official languages are Afrikaans, English, Southern Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. Traffic drives on the left, and the country observes the time zone UTC+02:00.

South Africa carries the ISO country codes ZA and ZAF, dials on the international calling code +27 and uses the .za internet domain.

South Africa shares its land borders with 6 countries, each of which is mapped in full on this site. Listed from the most to the least populous, here is how they compare.

Its neighbours are Mozambique (capital Maputo, about 34,090,466 people), Zimbabwe (capital Harare, about 17,073,087 people), Namibia (capital Windhoek, about 3,022,401 people), Botswana (capital Gaborone, about 2,359,609 people), Lesotho (capital Maseru, about 2,116,427 people) and Eswatini (capital Mbabane, about 1,235,549 people).

By area, South Africa is larger than 6 of these neighbours and smaller than 0 of them, which places its size in context along its own frontiers. Open any neighbour above to see its capital, borders and full set of facts on its own map.

The interactive map above is centred on 29.0° S, 24.0° E and opens at zoom level 4, framing South Africa within Africa. A marker pin sits at the country’s approximate geographic centre; drag the map or use scroll and pinch to move from a regional overview down to the streets of Pretoria. The map is drawn from OpenStreetMap data, the same open dataset used across this site, so place names, roads and coastlines stay consistent from one country to the next.

South Africa lies about 3,219 km from the equator, in the southern and eastern hemispheres of the globe. Zoom out to see how its coastline and land borders meet the wider region.

South Africa keeps a single standard time zone, UTC+02:00. That figure is the country’s offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the modern reference that for everyday purposes matches Greenwich Mean Time, so local clocks sit +02:00 relative to UTC before any seasonal daylight saving change.

The official currency is the South African rand (ZAR, R).

The official languages are Afrikaans, English, Southern Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu, which is what appears on signs, documents and many of the place labels you will see on the map.

For practical reference, vehicles drive on the left-hand side of the road, the international dialling code is +27 and websites commonly use the .za internet domain.

In short, South Africa is a coastal country in Africa, sharing land borders with 6 countries. Its capital is Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Cape Town. South Africa has a population of about 63,100,945 and covers around 1,221,037 km² (471,445 sq mi), ranking it 24th in the world by population and 24th by area. The interactive map, facts table and questions on this page bring those details together in one place for South Africa.

The flag of South Africa is composed of two equal horizontal bands of red and blue, with a yellow-edged black isosceles triangle superimposed on the hoist side of the field. This triangle has its base centered on the hoist end, spans about two-fifth the width and two-third the height of the field, and is enclosed on its sides by the arms of a white-edged green horizontally oriented Y-shaped band which extends along the boundary of the red and blue bands to the fly end of the field.

The flag of South Africa is shown above as an emoji, rendered by your device’s own font; see it alongside every other nation on the flags of the world page.