Everything you need to know about South Africa
South Africa stretches from the Cape’s vineyards across the dry Karoo to the highveld and the wildlife of the Kruger. Explore its nine provinces and the stories behind them, then practise Zulu, Xhosa or Afrikaans. These are three of the country’s twelve official languages.
Read it, then make it stick
Geography of South Africa
South Africa is a high plateau ringed by mountains at the southern tip of Africa, with the Atlantic on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other.
Know the shape of the country
Start with nine provinces, then place twenty cities and explore thirteen waters. Connect Johannesburg with Gauteng and the Vaal, Durban with KwaZulu-Natal and the Indian Ocean, and the Cape with the Atlantic. Cape Agulhas marks the conventional boundary between the two oceans.
Places worth visiting
Essential · Mountain & views
Table Mountain
Ride the rotating cable car or hike up for views over the city and the ocean.
Pair Cape Town and the winelands with a safari in Kruger, then go further along the Garden Route and up into the Drakensberg. Essential is our shortlist for a first trip, and worth a detour goes further. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take Zulu with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the eleven openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of South Africa, the countries marked guide have a page like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
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