South Africa β Country Profile & National Debt
An overview of South Africa covering geography, demographics, economy, culture, political status, and practical information, sourced from World Bank and REST Countries open data.
These figures are estimates based on public statistics and may differ from actual values.
About South Africa
The capital of South Africa is Pretoria. It has a population of approximately 63.1M. The country covers an area of 1,221,037 kmΒ². It is located in Southern Africa.
Uniquely features three capitals (Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein).
Geography
South Africa is a country in Southern Africa, part of the Africa region. It covers an area of approximately 1,221,037 kmΒ². It shares land borders with Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Namibia, totalling 6 neighbours.
Demographics & Languages
South Africa has a population of approximately 63,100,945 people. Population density is around 51.7 people per kmΒ². Its officially recognised languages include Afrikaans, English, and Southern Ndebele and others, totalling 11 languages. People from this country are referred to as South African.
Economy Overview
As of 2024, South Africa reports a nominal GDP of about $401.1 billion. Government debt stood at roughly 79.4% of GDP in 2023. The official currency is the South African rand (ZAR, symbol R). The current exchange rate is approximately 1 USD = 16.33 ZAR.
Culture & Time
South Africa operates on a single time zone (UTC+02:00). The local week is considered to start on Monday. Its country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) is.za.
Government & Status
The capital of South Africa is Pretoria. It is internationally recognised as an independent sovereign state. The country is a member state of the United Nations.
Practical Information
Traffic drives on the left. The international dialling code is +27. Its FIFA country code is RSA, and its ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code is ZA.
Data Sources & Methodology
GDP and debt-to-GDP figures on this page are pulled from the most recent available year of World Bank open statistics. The real-time debt estimate is computed by multiplying total debt (GDP Γ debt ratio) by World Bank's real interest rate (or a 4% fallback when unavailable) and dividing across each second of a year. Exchange rates refresh hourly via open.er-api.com, and country-level metadata such as languages, time zones, borders, and domains is fetched from REST Countries every 24 hours. All values are estimates derived from public datasets and may differ from official figures.