Images from South Africa’s nine provinces. An Nguni cow on a beach on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape. The Brandwag rock in the eastern Free State. Street art in the Maboneng Precinct in Johannesburg, Gauteng. The Durban harbour in KwaZulu-Natal. Entabeni game reserve in Limpopo. Traditional Ndebele domestic artwork in Mpumalanga. Quiver trees in the Northern Cape. Mining in North West. A view of Lion’s Head from the suburb of Bo-Kaap in Cape Town, Western Cape.

South Africa’s nine provinces are the Eastern Cape, the Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Northern Cape, North West and the Western Cape.

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History

Before 1996, South Africa had four provinces: the Transvaal and Orange Free State – previously Boer republics – and Natal and the Cape, once British colonies.

In 1910 these four states were united into a single country, the Union of South Africa, under British rule. This became the Republic of South Africa in 1960, under apartheid rule.

In the 1970s and eighties, under the apartheid doctrine of “separate development”, the map of South Africa was gradually spattered with the odd outlines of the “homelands”.

These unsustainable states were set up on disjointed parcels of land with no economic value. Laws were passed to make black South Africans citizens of these barren regions, denying black people’s citizenship of South Africa as a whole.

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In 1996, under South Africa’s new democratic constitution, the homelands were dismantled, citizenship restored and South Africa consolidated into today’s nine provinces.

Land area of the provinces

There are vast differences in the size of the provinces, from the small and crowded city region of Gauteng to the vast and empty Northern Cape.

Data source: Statistics South Africa Census 2022

The land area of South Africa’s nine provinces, from smallest to largest:

• Gauteng: 18,178 square kilometres (1.5% of total)
• Mpumalanga: 76,495 square kilometres (6.3%)
• KwaZulu-Natal: 94,361 square kilometres (7.7%)
• North West: 104,882 square kilometres (8.6%)
• Limpopo: 125,755 square kilometres (10.3%)
• Western Cape: 129,462 square kilometres (10.6%)
• Free State: 129,825 square kilometres (10.6%)
• Eastern Cape: 168,966 square kilometres (13.8%)
• Northern Cape: 372,889 square kilometres (30.5%)
• South Africa: 1,220,813 square kilometres (100%)

READ MORE: How big is South Africa?

Population of the provinces

The population of the provinces also varies considerably. Gauteng, the smallest province, has the largest number of people living there – over a quarter of South Africa’s population. The Northern Cape, which takes up nearly a third of the country’s land area, has the smallest population: just over 2.2% of the national total.

In 2024 South Africa’s provincial populations, and their share of the total, were:

• Eastern Cape: 7,176,230 (11.4%)
• Free State: 3,044,050 (4.8%)
• Gauteng: 15,931,824 (25.3%)
• KwaZulu-Natal: 12,312,712 (19.5%)
• Limpopo: 6,402,594 (10.2%)
• Mpumalanga: 5,057,662 (8.%)
• Northern Cape: 1,372,943 (2.2%)
• North West: 4,155,303 (6.6%)
• Western Cape: 7,562,588 (12.%)

READ MORE: South Africa’s population

CENSUS COUNTS OF PROVINCIAL POPULATIONS

South Africa has held three censuses in its recent democratic history: in 1996, 2001 and 2011. Over those 15 years, the population of the provinces shifted.

Data: Statistics South Africa

Gauteng’s population grew dramatically, overtaking that of KwaZulu-Natal – which saw significant growth of its own. Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and the Western Cape also had notable increases in population. By contrast, the populations of the Eastern Cape, Free State and Northern Cape remained fairly static, as people migrated to other provinces.

READ MORE: Infographic: Census counts of South Africa’s population

Population density in the provinces

The variation in land area and population among South Africa’s population translates into huge differences in population density, according to 2017 data. Gauteng has an average of 785 people per square kilometre, while the Northern Cape has only three people for each square kilometre.

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Population density in South Africa’s nine provinces in 2017, from smallest to largest:

• Northern Cape: 3 people per square kilometre
• Free State: 22 people per square kilometre
• North West: 37 people per square kilometre
• Eastern Cape: 38 people per square kilometre
• Limpopo: 46 people per square kilometre
• Western Cape: 50 people per square kilometre
• Mpumalanga: 58 people per square kilometre
• KwaZulu-Natal: 117 people per square kilometre
• Gauteng: 785 people per square kilometre

Map of population density in South Africa’s nine provinces.

READ MORE: South Africa’s population

Provincial migration

South Africans migrate away from poverty to where the jobs are, moving from poorer provinces to the richer ones.

Gauteng is South Africa’s wealthiest province, mostly a city region and the centre of the country’s economy. It has the largest population, constantly swelled by migration. The province’s net migration rate (the number of people moving in minus people moving out) was nearly a million between 2011 and 2016.

Click animation to view from the start. Data: Statistics South Africa mid-year population estimates 2017

The Eastern Cape is the poorest province. Between 2011 and 2016 nearly half a million of its people migrated to other provinces, while only 170 000 or so moved into the province.

READ MORE: South Africa’s population

Province and population group

There is also a wide variation in the racial composition of the different provinces’ populations.

Census 2011 figures reveal that black people were the majority population group in seven of the nine provinces, comprising from 75% to 97% of the provincial total. Yet they made up less than a third of the population in the Western Cape (26.7%) and under a half in the Northern Cape (46.5%).

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The distribution of a population group can reflect that people’s history in the country.

In 2011, coloured people were found mainly in the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape (respectively 61.1%, 12% and 10.7% of South Africa’s total coloured population). People of this group are largely descended from a mixture of slaves brought to what was then the Cape Colony, white immigrants to the colony, and indigenous Africans, particularly the Khoisan.

The majority (71.6%) of Indian/Asian people lived in KwaZulu-Natal in 2011. Many members of this group descend from indentured labourers brought to colonial Natal in the early 20th century to work on sugarcane plantations. Only 0.3% of Indians lived in the Free State (0.1% of the total Free State population), as they were forbidden by law to enter what was then the Orange Free State during the apartheid era.

Provincial distribution also reflects a group’s socioeconomic position. White people, the beneficiaries of the apartheid system, were largely found in the more developed and urbanised provinces of Gauteng (in 2011, 40.4% of the total white population, and 18.9% of the total Gauteng population) and the Western Cape (19.4% of the total white population, and 18.4% of the Western Cape population).

READ MORE: South Africa’s population

Languages of the provinces

There’s considerable variation in home languages between the provinces, according to Census 2011.

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IsiXhosa, for instance, is spoken by almost 80% of people in the Eastern Cape, while around 78% of those in KwaZulu-Natal speak isiZulu. IsiZulu is also the most common home language in Gauteng, but at a much smaller percentage. In the Western Cape and Northern Cape, Afrikaans comes into its own.

READ MORE: The languages of South Africa

The main languages in each province, according to Census 2011:

• Eastern Cape: isiXhosa 78.8%, Afrikaans 10.6%
• Free State: Sesotho 64.2%, Afrikaans 12.7%
• Gauteng: isiZulu 19.8%, English 13.3%, Afrikaans 12.4%, Sesotho 11.6%
• KwaZulu-Natal: isiZulu 77.8%, English 13.2%
• Limpopo: Sesotho 52.9%, Xitsonga 17%, Tshivenda 16.7%
• Mpumalanga: siSwati 27.7%, isiZulu 24.1%, Xitsonga 10.4%, isiNdebele 10.1%
• Northern Cape: Afrikaans 53.8%, Setswana 33.1%
• North West: Setswana 63.4%, Afrikaans 9%
• Western Cape: Afrikaans 49.7%, isiXhosa 24.7%, English 20.3%

Click image to learn more.

Economy of the provinces

Gauteng dominates almost all industries in South Africa, except agriculture and mining.

Click animation to see a static version, and to learn more.

In 2016 the main industries in each province were:

• Eastern Cape: government services 21%, trade, catering and accommodation 18%, finance 16%
• Free State: government services 15%, finance 14%, trade, catering and accommodation 13%
• Gauteng: finance 23%, government services 19%, manufacturing 14%
• KwaZulu-Natal: manufacturing 16%, finance 15%, government services 15%
• Limpopo: mining 25%, government services 18%, trade, catering and accommodation 13%
• Mpumalanga: mining 20%, trade, catering and accommodation 13%, manufacturing 13%
• Northern Cape: mining 19%, government services 15%, finance 12%
• North West: mining 30%, government services 12%, finance 12%
• Western Cape: finance 23%, trade, catering and accommodation 15%, manufacturing 14%

THE PROVINCE’S SHARE OF SOUTH AFRICA’S ECONOMY

Population size correlates with each province’s contribution to the national economy, with Gauteng having the biggest.

The tiny province punches way above its weight, making up 33.8% of South Africa’s gross domestic product in 2016 and around 5% of the GDP of Africa as a whole. Next is KwaZulu-Natal with 16%, followed by the Western Cape with 13.7%. These three provinces together contribute nearly two-thirds to total economy of South Africa.

In 2016 the value of each province’s economy, and its share of the total GDP of South Africa, was:

• Northern Cape: R91 billion (2.1% of South Africa’s GDP)
• Free State: R218 billion (5%)
• North West: R280 billion (6.4%)
• Limpopo: R312 billion (7.2%)
• Mpumalanga: R324 billion (7.4%)
• Eastern Cape: R331 billion (7.6%)
• Western Cape: R596 billion (13.7%)
• KwaZulu-Natal: R692 billion (15.9%)
• Gauteng: R1.5 trillion (34.6%)

Government of the provinces

The eye-catching architecture of the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature in Galeshewe, Kimberley. Click image for a larger view. (Graeme Williams, MediaClub)

South Africa’s provinces are governed, in different ways, on a national, provincial and local level.

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

On the national level, South Africa has two houses of parliament: the National Assembly, and the National Council of Provinces. The second exists to ensure that the interests of each province are protected in the laws passed by the National Assembly.

Each one of South Africa’s nine provinces sends 10 representatives to the National Council of Provinces. Six of these are permanent members of the council, and four are special delegates.

PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

Each province has its own provincial government.

The provincial legislature has the power to pass laws in certain limited areas. The legislature has between 30 and 80 members depending on the province’s portion of the national voters’ roll.

The premier – the head of government in the province – governs the province together with other “members of the executive council”, known as MECs. Each MEC has a specific responsibility, such as health, education, tourism and transport.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The nine provinces are each further divided into municipalities. Metropolitan municipalities are densely populated urban areas with major cities – such as Johannesburg or Durban – at their core. District municipalities are larger, less urban regions centred on one or more town or small city. District municipalities are further divided into local municipalities.

The cities of the provinces

Pietermaritzburg, the capital of KwaZulu-Natal. A contemporary statue of Mahatma Ghandi, an icon of resistance to colonial rule, stands against the heavily ornate facade of the Pietermaritzburg city hall, a building constructed during the era of the British Natal Colony. (E, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Each of the nine provinces has a provincial capital, the seat of provincial government. These are usually the largest city in the province – Johannesburg in Gauteng, for example, or Mahikeng in North West.

The exceptions are the Eastern Cape (Bhisho) and KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg), which have smaller cities as their capitals for reasons of history. Cape Town in the Western Cape and Bloemfontein in the Free State also stand out for being both provincial capitals and two of the three capital cities of South Africa.

The provincial capitals and major cities of South Africa’s nine provinces are:

• Eastern Cape: Bhisho (capital) and Port Elizabeth (major city)
• Free State: Bloemfontein (capital and major city)
• Gauteng: Johannesburg (capital and major city)
• KwaZulu-Natal: Pietermaritzburg (capital) and Durban (major city)
• Limpopo: Polokwane (capital and major city)
• Mpumalanga: Mbombela (capital and major city) – also known as Nelspruit
• North West: Mahikeng (capital and major city) – formerly known as Mafeking, then as Mafikeng
• Northern Cape: Kimberley (capital and major city)
• Western Cape: Cape Town (capital and major city)

Data: Statistics South Africa Census 2011

Sources

• Census South Africa public database
• Statistics South Africa Census 2022
• Statistics South Africa Census 2011
• Statistics South Africa Community Survey 2016
• Statistics South Africa mid-year population estimates 2017
• Statistics South Africa gross domestic product, fourth quarter 2017
• United Nations Statistics Division World Statistics Pocketbook 2017
• World Bank Open Data
• MediaClub

Researched, written and designed by Mary Alexander.
Updated July 2025.
Comments? Email mary1alexander@gmail.com

The post The nine provinces of South Africa appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

Mary Alexander • 1 August 2025

“A 35 year old woman was arrested for collecting child support money from eight different men for one child,” reads a message that’s gone viral in South Africa since July 2025.

As evidence, it shows a photo of a woman, her back to the camera, being held by two police officers. A police van is behind them.

It says 35-year-old Nancy Mudau of Limpopo province has received child maintenance from the eight men, who all thought they were the child’s father, for 12 years.

She “used the money to build herself a beautiful house. At the time of her arrest she was busy building a tavern with child support money.”

The claim has spread across Facebook (here, here and here), X (here, here and here), Instagram (here and here) and TikTok (here, here and here), and onto blogs as far afield as Zimbabwe, Ghana and Nigeria.

It has provoked strong reactions. One Facebook user commented: “Vuka Mtomnyama ! Cause of GBV ?” (“Wake up! Cause of gender-based violence?”)

In South Africa both parents – married or not – are responsible for the financial support of their children, according to the Maintenance Act of 1998 and the Children’s Act of 2005. This duty is determined by how much each parent can afford.

But women often struggle to get child support from their children’s fathers, even though failure to pay maintenance could land a person in prison.

Does the photo really show a woman who was arrested for successfully collecting child support from eight different men over 12 years?

Drug bust in Northern Cape

A Google image search of the photo returned a different story.

The photo is more than a year old, and appears in a South African Police Service report on a drug bust in the Northern Cape province on 5 April 2024. Three men were arrested in the town of Pampierstad for possession of crystal meth, and the woman arrested in Hartswater for possession of tablets suspected to be mandrax.

A day later, the Kimberley-based Diamond Fields Advertiser reported the arrests in an article that includes the photo of the woman.

There have been no credible reports of a “Nancy Mudau” from Limpopo being arrested for maintenance fraud. And online searches for the name simply return the claim. It is false.

It first appeared on the Facebook page “Koos de Klerk” on 12 July 2025. The page has almost a quarter of a million followers and is full of sensationalist clickbait posts.

Almost every post includes links to the dodgy job scam websites search67.com and jobsfinder.co.za. The sites have no useful information and are full of ads.

The claim is entirely made up, as part of a scheme to make money from online ads.

The post South African woman arrested for collecting child support from eight men? No, Facebook post a scam appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

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The land area of South Africa’s nine provinces, in order of size:

• Gauteng: 18,178 square kilometres (1.5% of total)
• Mpumalanga: 76,495 square kilometres (6.3%)
• KwaZulu-Natal: 94,361 square kilometres (7.7%)
• North West: 104,882 square kilometres (8.6%)
• Limpopo: 125,755 square kilometres (10.3%)
• Western Cape: 129,462 square kilometres (10.6%)
• Free State: 129,825 square kilometres (10.6%)
• Eastern Cape: 168,966 square kilometres (13.8%)
• Northern Cape: 372,889 square kilometres (30.5%)
• South Africa: 1,220,813 square kilometres (100%)

(Source: Statistics South Africa Community Survey 2016)

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Find out more about South Africa’s provinces

• The nine provinces of South Africa
• Infographic: The population of South Africa’s provinces
• Infographic: Population density in South Africa’s provinces
• Animation: The economies of South Africa’s provinces
• Moving to the city: Provincial migration
• Animation: What languages are spoken in South Africa’s provinces?
• South Africa’s provinces and ‘homelands’ before 1996

Written and designed by Mary Alexander.
Updated 7 April 2018.
Comments? Email southafrica.gateway@gmail.com

More infographics

The graphics on this page are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

The post Infographic: The land area of South Africa’s nine provinces appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

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The Northern Cape is divided into five district municipalities.

The province also has 26 smaller local municipalities, each falling under one of the five district municipalities.

The Northern Cape has no metropolitan municipalities.

District municipalities in the Northern Cape

READ MORE ABOUT LOCAL GOVERNMENT:

• Local government in the Eastern Cape
• Local government in the Free State
• Local government in Gauteng
• Local government in KwaZulu-Natal
• Local government in Limpopo
• Local government in Mpumalanga
• Local government in the Northern Cape
• Local government in North West
• Local government in the Western Cape

READ MORE ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA’S PROVINCES:

• The nine provinces of South Africa
• The population of South Africa’s provinces
• The land area of South Africa’s provinces
• Gallery: The Eastern Cape
• Gallery: The Free State
• Infographic: The economies of South Africa’s nine provinces
• Infographic: Population density in South Africa’s provinces
• Infographic: What languages are spoken in South Africa’s provinces?
• The provinces and ‘homelands’ of South Africa before 1996

Data source: Statistics South Africa’s 2016 Community Survey
Thanks and credit to Htonl, who makes public-funded data available to the public and creates maps of South Africa you can’t find anywhere else.

Researched, written and designed by Mary Alexander.
Updated 10 March 2025.

The post Infographic: Local government in the Northern Cape appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

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The old provinces were the Cape and Natal, former British colonies, and the Transvaal and Orange Free State, once Boer (or Afrikaner) republics.

At the end of the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902 (more accurately known as the South African War because all groups were, in one way or another,  involved in the conflict), Britain controlled all four territories. These were combined into the Union of South Africa, a dominion of the British Empire, in 1910. In 1961, following a whites-only referendum, the country left the British Commonwealth and became the Republic of South Africa.

Click image for more information.

In 1996, following the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa’s new constitution dismantled the “homelands” and established nine new provinces in place of the old four.

• READ MORE: The nine provinces of South Africa

Natal and the Orange Free State remained the same territories, but were renamed KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State.

The Cape and Transvaal were broken up into smaller provinces:

• The Cape became the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and the western part of North West.
• The Transvaal became Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the eastern part of North West.

The ‘homelands’

The African “homelands” – also known as Bantustans – were established as part of the grand apartheid strategy of “separate development”. The idea was to establish states to which black South Africans were forced to have citizenship, thereby denying them citizenship of – and rights in – South Africa as a whole.

These spurious states were not recognised by the rest of the world. They were set up on scattered parcels of uneconomic land, often with tracts of “South Africa” between them. This meant that cheap black migrant labour would always be available to profit the white economy, as the jobs were only in the areas set aside for white people.

There were 10 homelands, each established for a specific “tribe” or ethic group. The notion of this ethnicity, these “tribes”, was the apartheid government’s racist simplification of complex linguistic and cultural groups.

Tribalism was used to argue that apartheid was simply filling the needs of nationalism – KwaZulu for the Zulu nation, Transkei for the Xhosa nation, Bophutatswana for the Tswana nation and so on, while the rest of South Africa was for the white nation (whatever that is).

The ethnicity designated for each homeland was:

• Bophuthatswana – Tswana
• Ciskei and Transkei – Xhosa
• Gazankulu – Shangaan and Tsonga
• KwaZulu – Zulu
• Lebowa – Pedi and Northern Ndebele
• Qwa Qwa – Basotho
• Venda – Venda

In 1970 the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act was passed, which made black people living throughout South Africa legal citizens in a specific homeland, according to the ethnicity set down for them in the population register.

While the plan was for all 10 homelands to eventually become “independent” (again, an independence not recognised by the rest of the world), only four ever did: the Transkei in 1976, Bophuthatswana in 1977, Venda in 1979, and Ciskei in 1981.

Researched, written and designed by Mary Alexander
Updated 24 September 2024
Comments? Email southafrica.gateway@gmail.com

The graphics on this page are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

The post The provinces and ‘homelands’ of South Africa before 1996 appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

See below for a static version of this animation.

Gauteng contributes more than a third to South Africa’s economy and dominates every sector except mining and agriculture. Mining is the main industry of Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and the Northern Cape. KwaZulu-Natal has the country’s largest farming sector, but the province’s major industry is manufacturing – second in size only to manufacturing in Gauteng.

Gauteng’s biggest sector is finance, real estate and business services, which makes up almost a quarter of the province’s economy, followed by general government services, and then manufacturing.

General government services include all major government administrative spending, as well as social grants. Investment in public healthcare and education fall under the category personal services.

Government services make the biggest contribution to the economies of the Free State (followed by finance) and the Eastern Cape (followed by trade, catering and accommodation).

The Western Cape’s largest industry is finance, followed by trade, catering and accommodation (a sector that roughly corresponds to shopping, leisure and tourism).

• READ MORE: The nine provinces of South Africa

In 2016 the main industries in each province were:

• Eastern Cape: government services 21%, trade, catering and accommodation 18%, finance 16%
• Free State: government services 15%, finance 14%, trade, catering and accommodation 13%
• Gauteng: finance 23%, government services 19%, manufacturing 14%
• KwaZulu-Natal: manufacturing 16%, finance 15%, government services 15%
• Limpopo: mining 25%, government services 18%, trade, catering and accommodation 13%
• Mpumalanga: mining 20%, trade, catering and accommodation 13%, manufacturing 13%
• Northern Cape: mining 19%, government services 15%, finance 12%
• North West: mining 30%, government services 12%, finance 12%
• Western Cape: finance 23%, trade, catering and accommodation 15%, manufacturing 14%

See below for the actual figures.

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Provincial economies in numbers

Here’s the composition and value of South Africa’s provincial economies in 2016.

All amounts are in millions of rands, so (for example) R7,140 means R7.1-billion, and R1,507,082 means R1.5-trillion.

Eastern Cape economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R5,695 (1.9%)
• Mining and quarrying: R437 (0.1%)
• Manufacturing: R37,724 (12.8%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R7,140 (2.4%)
• Construction: R12,543 (4.2%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R60,351 (20.4%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R27,759 (9.4%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R53,401 (18.1%)
• Personal services: R21,880 (7.4%)
• General government services: R68,820 (23.3%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R35,343
• Eastern Cape GDP at market prices (millions): R331,093

Free State economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R10,057 (5.2%)
• Mining and quarrying: R20,501 (10.5%)
• Manufacturing: R22,560 (11.6%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R8,871 (4.6%)
• Construction: R4,990 (2.6%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R27,410 (14.1%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R20,203 (10.4%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R30,551 (15.7%)
• Personal services: R15,511 (8.0%)
• General government services: R33,711 (17.3%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R23,485
• Free State GDP at market prices (millions): R217,849

Gauteng economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R6,344 (0.5%)
• Mining and quarrying: R33,927 (2.5%)
• Manufacturing: R204,292 (15.2%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R43,657 (3.2%)
• Construction: R53,278 (4.0%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R180,864 (13.5%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R136,434 (10.1%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R340,571 (25.3%)
• Personal services: R66,177 (4.9%)
• General government services: R278,994 (20.8%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R162,545
• Gauteng GDP at market prices (millions): R1,507,082

KwaZulu-Natal economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R23,896 (3.9%)
• Mining and quarrying: R9,226 (1.5%)
• Manufacturing: R112,407 (18.2%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R24,005 (3.9%)
• Construction: R26,836 (4.3%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R94,782 (15.3%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R83,412 (13.5%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R103,667 (16.8%)
• Personal services: R37,262 (6.0%)
• General government services: R103,395 (16.7%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R73,334
• KwaZulu-Natal GDP at market prices (millions): R692,222

Limpopo economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R7,051 (2.5%)
• Mining and quarrying: R77,239 (27.8%)
• Manufacturing: R8,124 (2.9%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R12,332 (4.4%)
• Construction: R9,158 (3.3%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R41,984 (15.1%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R13,957 (5.0%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R40,554 (14.6%)
• Personal services: R11,870 (4.3%)
• General government services: R55,104 (19.9%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R34,313
• Limpopo GDP at market prices (millions): R311,686

Mpumalanga economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R8,268 (2.9%)
• Mining and quarrying: R64,958 (22.5%)
• Manufacturing: R40,810 (14.2%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R22,522 (7.8%)
• Construction: R9,073 (3.1%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R42,455 (14.7%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R19,065 (6.6%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R33,406 (11.6%)
• Personal services: R11,278 (3.9%)
• General government services: R36,273 (12.6%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R35,613
• Mpumalanga GDP at market prices (millions): R323,722

Northern Cape economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R5,937 (7.3%)
• Mining and quarrying: R17,220 (21.2%)
• Manufacturing: R2,927 (3.6%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R3,344 (4.1%)
• Construction: R2,946 (3.6%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R9,771 (12.0%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R9,946 (12.2%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R10,779 (13.3%)
• Personal services: R4,405 (5.4%)
• General government services: R14,001 (17.2%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R9,607
• Northern Cape GDP at market prices (millions): R90,883

North West economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R6,637 (2.7%)
• Mining and quarrying: R82,529 (33.3%)
• Manufacturing: R13,401 (5.4%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R8,618 (3.5%)
• Construction: R6,129 (2.5%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R29,349 (11.8%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R16,183 (6.5%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R32,957 (13.3%)
• Personal services: R18,909 (7.6%)
• General government services: R33,267 (13.4%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R31,755
• North West GDP at market prices (millions): R279,733

Western Cape economy (in millions)

• Agriculture, forestry and fishing: R20,873 (3.9%)
• Mining and quarrying: R1,268 (0.2%)
• Manufacturing: R81,540 (15.3%)
• Electricity, gas and water: R15,534 (2.9%)
• Construction: R29,416 (5.5%)
• Trade, catering and accommodation: R91,247 (17.1%)
• Transport, storage and communication: R57,544 (10.8%)
• Finance, real estate and business services: R138,179 (25.9%)
• Personal services: R35,555 (6.7%)
• General government services: R61,393 (11.5%)
• Taxes less subsidies on products: R63,495
• Western Cape GDP at market prices (millions): R596,043

Researched, written and designed by Mary Alexander.
Updated 17 June 2021.
Comments? Email mary1alexander@mail.com

The graphics on this page are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

The post The economies of South Africa’s nine provinces appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

The main languages of each province are:

• Eastern Cape – isiXhosa (78.8%), Afrikaans (10.6%)
• Free State – Sesotho (64.2%), Afrikaans (12.7%)
• Gauteng – isiZulu (19.8%), English (13.3%), Afrikaans (12.4%), Sesotho (11.6%)
• KwaZulu-Natal – isiZulu (77.8%), English (13.2%)
• Limpopo – Sesotho sa Leboa (52.9%), Xitsonga (17%), Tshivenda (16.7%)
• Mpumalanga – siSwati (27.7%), isiZulu (24.1%), Xitsonga (10.4%), isiNdebele (10.1%)
• Northern Cape – Afrikaans (53.8%), Setswana (33.1%)
• North West – Setswana (63.4%), Afrikaans (9%)
• Western Cape – Afrikaans (49.7%), isiXhosa (24.7%), English (20.3%)

READ MORE:

• The 11 languages of South Africa
• The nine provinces of South Africa
• What languages do black, coloured, Indian and white South Africans speak?
• South Africa’s population

Researched, written and designed by Mary Alexander.
Updated 11 June 2021.
Comments? Email mary1alexander@gmail.com

The graphic on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

The post What languages are spoken in South Africa’s nine provinces? appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

Data: Statistics South Africa mid-year population estimates 2017

Gauteng is South Africa’s wealthiest province, mostly a city region and the centre of the country’s economy. It has the largest population, constantly increased by migration. Gauteng’s net migration rate (the number of people moving in minus people moving out) was nearly two million between 2006 and 2016. Its population will be swelled by another million from 2016 to 2021.

The Eastern Cape is the poorest province. Between 2006 and 2016 a million of its people migrated to other provinces, while only 300,000 or so moved into the province, leaving the Eastern Cape with a negative net migration of minus 700,000 people. From 2016 to 2021 the Eastern Cape is expected to lose another 324,000 people to migration.

Read more

• South Africa’s population
• The nine provinces of South Africa
• Infographic: The population of South Africa’s nine provinces
• Infographic: Population density in South Africa’s nine provinces
• Animation: The economies of South Africa’s provinces

Estimated migration between the provinces from 2006 to 2011

Estimated migration between the provinces from 2011 to 2016

Projected migration between the provinces from 2016 to 2021

• Data: Statistics South Africa mid-year population estimates 2017

Researched, written and designed by Mary Alexander.
Updated 2 October 2020

The graphic on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

The post Moving to the city: Provincial migration in South Africa from 2002 to 2017 appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

Waterberg star trails

Star trails curve over the massif of the Waterberg Mountains in a time-lapse night shot taken from the Tlopi Tented Camp in Marakele National Park, Limpopo province. The surface of Tlopi Dam can be seen in the foreground. (Martin Heigan, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Street art on the mountain

Graffiti captured by a trail runner on Table Mountain’s Tafelberg Road near Cape Town. (JB Dodane, CC BY-NC 2.0)

The Grootdraai Dam in torrent

Water floods through the opened sluice gates of the Grootdraai Dam near Standerton in Mpumalanga. (Jan Truter, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

21 March: From Sharpeville to Langa to Human Rights Day

The coffins of those slain in the Langa Massacre of 21 March 1985. Twenty-five years to the day after the infamous Sharpeville Massacre, in which 69 people were killed, police opened fire on a crowd of people on their way to attend a funeral in Langa, Uitenhage, in the Eastern Cape. At least 20 people were killed. Today the 21st of March is commemorated as Human Rights Day, a public holiday. The United Nations marks 21 March as International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In Namibia, South Africa’s northern neighbour, it’s Independence Day.   (UN Photo, CC BY-NC-ND)

Regina Mundi Church in Soweto

Stained glass in the famous Regina Mundi Church in Soweto shows scenes from the township’s – and South Africa’s – liberation history. (Willem van Valkenburg, CC BY 2.0)

The Cosmopolitan in Maboneng

The Cosmopolitan building and a mural of Jan van Riebeeck in the Maboneng inner-city regeneration precinct in downtown Johannesburg. The Cosmopolitan was built in 1899, when the mining town was just 13 years old. (Adamina, CC BY 2.0)

Nguni cow on the Wild Coast

An Nguni cow on the beach at Morgan’s Bay in the Wild Coast region of the Eastern Cape. Ngunis, a breed of Zebu cattle, are famous for their uniquely patterned colourful hides. (Gareth Photo, CC BY-NC-ND)

Quiver trees at sunrise

Quiver trees – “kokerboom” in Afrikaans – at sunrise in the Richtersveld National Park, in the far north of the Northern Cape. The Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape is one of South Africa’s nine Unesco World Heritage Sites. (Appalachian Dreamer, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Eastern Free State farmland

An aerial view of circular crop fields watered by centre-pivot irrigation systems near the small farming town of Jacobsdal in the western Free State, near the Northern Cape border. (Jean Boris Hamon, CC BY-NC-ND)

The San Bushman masterpiece

A section of the Linton Panel, one of the richest examples of Stone Age San Bushman rock art, in South Africa’s Iziko National Museum in Cape Town. (H Bechen, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Big kittens in Bloemfontein

Big cat kittens but heads over a toy at the Cheetah Experience carnivore sanctuary near Bloemfontein in the Free State. At left is a caracal kitten, and at right a leopard kitten. Things will change. Grown caracals weigh, at the most, 18 kilograms. Adult male leopards can be as large as 60 kilograms. Adult domestic cats are only four to five kilograms. (Chris Parker, CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Cradle of Humankind

A replica of a human skull on display at the Sterkfontein Museum in northeastern Gauteng, in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. Important fossils of hominin species going back millions of years – the relatives and possible ancestors of modern humans – have been found in the nearby Sterkfontein Caves and other sites in the region. (Andrew Moore, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Summer clouds and lightning over Joburg

The clouds and lightning of a summertime thunderstorm over Johannesburg. The Brixton Tower is at right, and the buildings of the city’s old central business district towards the left. (Derek Keats, CC BY 2.0)

Cape Town’s Theewaterskloof dries out

A satellite image of Cape Town’s Theewaterskloof Dam in early February 2018 shows the seriousness of the city’s drought. After three successive dry years, the dam, which supplies half of Cape Town’s water, was at only 13% capacity. (Antti Lipponen, CC BY 2.0)

Young Vaal Eagles

The Young Vaal Eagles under-14 football team train on a field near Deneysville, a town on the banks of the Vaal Dam in the Free State. (John Hogg, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Off to the beach in Strand

Holidaymakers on the way to the beach in the seaside resort of Strand (Afrikaans for “beach”) on the eastern shore of False Bay in the Western Cape in December 2018. (Steve Crane, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Children work the mines in 1988

A 1988 image of young South African coal miners, little more than children, taken by legendary photographer Peter Magubane for the United Nations. (Peter Magubane, CC BY-NC-ND)

A sky view of South Africa

South Africa and the island of Madagascar are the only landmasses visible on the planet in this composite image captured by six orbits of the Nasa-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership spacecraft on 9 April 2015. Tropical cyclone Joalane can be seen over the Indian Ocean. (Nasa, CC BY 2.0)

Read more: Gallery: Africa from space

Pieces of beauty

Beauty Maswanganyi is the shop manager and a contributing artist at Piece, an enterprise in Johannesburg specialising in indigenous art and craft objects from around southern Africa. (John Hogg, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Honey badger and pup

A lucky shot of a honey badger carrying her pup, in the Kgalagadi Tranfrontier Park region of the Northern Cape. The honey badger is one of the most fearless and intelligent carnivores on the planet. They live in fiercely defended underground burrows, so their young are rarely seen. (Derek Keats, CC BY 2.0)

Saldanha Bay fisherman in 1960

Snapped in 1960 and rare in its record of black people’s daily lives during apartheid, this archive photo shows a fisherman in Saldanha Bay on the west coast moving his sun-dried snoek indoors as rain approaches. (Dr Mary Gillham Archive Project, CC BY 2.0)

Power stations against the sky

Coal-fired power stations outside Emalahleni, a town previously known as Witbank, in Mpumalanga. Emalahleni means “place of coal” in South Africa’s Nguni languages. According to European Union research, the Emalahleni region has some of the most polluted air in the world, with chromium and barium levels higher than instruments could record. (Jane Flowers, CC BY 2.0)

Aerial view of Kleinmond

Houses and gardens in Kleinmond, a small town in the Kogelberg Nature Reserve on the Atlantic coast some 90 kilometres east of Cape Town. (Kevin Rechts, CC BY-NC 2.0)

More Sweetly Play the Dance

A still from More Sweetly Play the Dance, a large-scale 14-minute video projection by acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge, at the Zeitz Mocca museum of contemporary African art in Cape Town. (Hans Olofsson, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Written, researched and compiled by Mary Alexander.
Comments? Email info@southafrica-info.com

The post Creative Commons images of South Africa appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 8 DECEMBER 2018

An artist’s impression of the earth’s surface billions of years ago. The planet had almost zero oxygen in its atmosphere, but there was still life: microorganisms living in the globe-spanning ocean, long before today’s continents were formed.  (National Geographic – The Story of Earth)

Life on earth needs oxygen to survive, right? Maybe not. A South African scientist and his colleagues have discovered the remains of giant bacteria that flourished on our planet billions of years ago – breathing sulphur.

Fossils of the bacteria were found in a thick layer of extremely hard and ancient black rock in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. They have been dated as 2.52-billion years old. Earth itself is 4.5-billion years old.

At the time these bacteria lived, there was just a trace of oxygen in our planet’s atmosphere – less than one-thousandth of one percent of what there is now. The air we breathe today is about 21% oxygen.

The fossils were discovered and analysed by a research team that included Professor Nicolas Beukes, a geologist at Cimera. He and his colleague Andrew Czaja of the University of Cincinnati published their research in the December 2016 issue of the journal Geology.

The ancient bacteria were exceptionally large – much larger than most modern bacteria – sphere-shaped, and smooth-walled. They were similar to modern single-celled creatures that live in the sulphur-rich waters of the deep oceans, where even now there is almost no oxygen.

ABOVE: A 3-D digital image showing the wrinkled surface of the compressed fossil, which was originally round. With a diameter of about 200 microns – 0.2 millimetres – these creatures were massive for bacteria.

Deep and dark waters

“These fossils represent the oldest known organisms that lived in a very dark, deep-water environment,” says Czaja. “These bacteria existed 2-billion years before plants and trees, which evolved about 450-million years ago. We discovered these microfossils preserved in a layer of hard silica-rich rock called chert located within the Kaapvaal craton of South Africa.”

The first half of our 4.5-billion-year-old planet’s history was an important time for the development and evolution of ancient bacteria. But there is little evidence of these life forms, or of how they survived with virtually no oxygen.

The bacteria thrived in deep areas of the ocean in a geologic time, 2.8- to 2.5-billion years ago, known as the Neoarchean Eon.

Because the atmosphere then had only traces of oxygen, scientists thought there could have been creatures that didn’t need sunlight or oxygen, living in the mud at the depths of the ocean. But there was no evidence, until now.

What makes these ancient South African fossil bacteria even more remarkable was not only that they breathed sulphur gas, but they also lived 2.5-billion years ago – more than 2.2-billion years before the dinosaurs first put in an appearance. (Andrew Czaja, University of Cincinnati)

The oxygen revolution

While the giant bacteria were thriving in the deep ocean, other species of micro-organism were living in shallower waters, closer to sunlight. These survived with photosynthesis, converting the sun’s energy into chemical energy – and releasing oxygen as a by-product. As these bacteria multiplied, so the oxygen levels in the earth’s atmosphere increased.

“We refer to this period as the Great Oxidation Event of 2.4- to 2.2-billion years ago,” says Czaja. This, he says, was “a time of major atmospheric evolution”.

Ancient rocks such as those containing the giant fossil bacteria are extremely rare today. So scientists’ understanding of the Neoarchean Eon is based on samples found in a handful of geographic areas, including South Africa’s Northern Cape.

Scientists theorise that South Africa and Western Australia were once part of an ancient supercontinent called Vaalbara. Then a shifting and upending of tectonic plates during a major change in the Earth’s surface split them apart.

In search of ancient bacteria … The scientists on a 2014 excursion to collect fossils near the town of Kuruman in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. From left: Clark Johnson, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Aaron Satkoski, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Nicolas Beukes, University of Johannesburg, South Africa; Breana Hashman, University of Wisconsin, Madison; and Kira Lorber, University of Cincinnati. (Andrew Czaja, University of Cincinnati)

‘Doing something remarkable’

According to the research by Beukes and Czaja, the Neoarchean bacteria, living deep in muddy sediment on the ocean floor, were processing hydrogen sulphide, the gas that gives off a rotten egg smell. They then emitted sulphate, a gas with no smell. He says this is the same process that goes on today as modern bacteria recycle decaying organic matter into minerals and gases.

“While I can’t claim that these early bacteria are the same ones we have today, we surmise that they may have been doing the same thing as some of our current bacteria,” says Czaja. The bacteria probably consumed dissolved sulphur-rich minerals from land rocks that had eroded and washed out to sea, or from old volcanic lava on the ocean floor.

There is an ongoing debate about when sulphur-oxidising bacteria arose and how that fits into the earth’s evolution of life.

“But these fossils tell us that sulphur-oxidising bacteria were there 2.52-billion years ago,” Czaja says, “and they were doing something remarkable.”

Comments? Email mary1alexander@gmail.com

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