A child plays in a restaurant in Vosloorus, a large township in Gauteng province. (Media Club)

The country has the sixth largest population in Africa – after Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania – and the 24th largest in the world.

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South Africa’s population: overview

According to Statistics South Africa’s 2024 mid-year population estimates, South Africa is home to 63,015,904 people.

Black people are in the majority, with a population of 51.5 million – 81.7% of the total. The remaining 18.3% is made up of 5.3 million coloured people (8.5%), 1.6 million Indian/Asian people (2.6%) and 4.5 million white people (7.2%).

Data source: Statistics South Africa mid-year population estimates 2024

These ratios have changed since the country became a democracy in 1994. The percentage of black people has increased, that of coloured and Indian/Asian people has stayed roughly the same, while the share of white people has shrunk.

The 1996 census, the first of the democratic era, recorded a population of 40.6 million. Black people made up 76.7% of the total, coloured people 8.9%, Indian/Asian people 2.6%, white people 10.9% and an uncategorised group 0.9%.

In about 2013 the coloured population overtook the white population as South Africa’s second-largest group.

READ MORE: Geographic distribution of South Africa’s races

Population of the provinces

The population of South Africa’s nine provinces varies enormously.

Data source: Statistics South Africa mid-year population estimates 2024

The most striking difference is between Gauteng and the Northern Cape. Gauteng is a city region of just 18,178 square kilometres – 1.4% of South Africa’s land area – yet it’s home to over a quarter of the country’s people. The arid and rural Northern Cape takes up almost a third of South Africa, but only 2.2% of the population live there.

Then there’s KwaZulu-Natal, home to almost a fifth of the population, and the larger Free State, home to only 4.8%.

Data source: Statistics South Africa Census 2022

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: The nine provinces of South Africa

Population density

South Africa’s population density is about 46 people per square kilometre, according to 2017 data.

In the provinces, differences in size and population mean different population densities. Gauteng, small but populous, has an average of 785 people for every square kilometre. KwaZulu-Natal has 117 people per square kilometre. The empty Northern Cape has just three people for each square kilometre.

READ MORE: The nine provinces of South Africa

Life, death and HIV

The 2024 estimate of average life expectancy at birth in South Africa is 66.5 years – 69.2 years for females and 63.6 years for males. This is up from a predicted life expectancy of 54.7 years in 2002, before any serious effort to tackle the HIV and Aids epidemic began.

The crude birth rate is 19.6 babies born for every 1,000 people. The total fertility rate is an average of 2.4 babies born to a woman over her lifetime. The crude death rate is 8.7 per 1,000.

Infant mortality (babies who die in their first year of birth) is 22.9 deaths for every 1,000 live births. The under-five mortality rate is 28.6 deaths per 1,000 live births.

These rates show an improvement on child survival since 2002, when infant mortality was 57 deaths and under-five mortality 79.7 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Some 8 million people are HIV positive, making up 12.7% of South Africa’s total population of 63 million. Women are hardest hit by the disease: over a fifth (20.5%) of all women aged 15 to 49 are HIV positive.

The total HIV prevalence rate was lower in 2002, at 8.9% of the population. The higher rate in 2024 reflects progress in the rollout of antiretroviral therapy, as more people live with HIV instead of dying of Aids.

READ MORE: HIV and Aids in South Africa

Age structure

South Africa has 17.3 million children aged 14 or younger, making kids the largest age group in the country and nearly a third (27.5%) of the population.

Poorer provinces tend to have a larger share of children and wealthier provinces a smaller share. In the Limpopo 33.1% of the population is aged 0 to 14 and in the Eastern Cape it’s 31.7%. By contrast, children make up 23% of Gauteng’s population and 22.9% of the Western Cape’s.

For the country as a whole, the second largest age group is from 30 to 44 (24.8%), closely followed by 15 to 29 (24.2%). Older groups are smaller: 13.8% are 45 to 59, 7.5% aged 60 to 74, and 2.2% 75 or older.

Age and race

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Data from 2017 reveals that when it comes to age structure and race, South Africa’s population reflects the facts of history and continued inequality.

While black South Africans are in the majority in every age group, this majority decreases as the age of the population rises. Coloured, Indian and especially white South Africans tend to live longer.

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Migration

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South Africans migrate away from poverty to where the jobs are. They move from poorer provinces to the richer ones, and from rural areas to the cities.

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.

In the 10 years from mid-2011 to mid-2021, net migration (number of people moving in minus people moving out) into Gauteng increased the province’s population by almost 1.9 million people.

The Western Cape, the third-largest provincial economy with the lowest poverty level, had net migration of 646,529 over the same 10 years. Conversely, KwaZulu-Natal – the second-largest – lost 18,333 of its people to migration from 2011 to 2021. While the province has a large economy, it also has relatively high levels of poverty.

The Eastern Cape has, by far, the highest level of poverty of all the provinces – and the highest number of people moving elsewhere. Its net migration for 2011 to 2021 was a negative 603,044. Limpopo had the second-highest rate of outward migration, at -300,527.

Net migration (people moving in minus people moving out) for South Africa’s provinces, 2011 to 2021:

• Eastern Cape: -603,044
• Free State: -23,128
• Gauteng: 1,856,006
• KwaZulu-Natal: -18,333
• Limpopo: -300,527
• Mpumalanga: 178,386
• Northern Cape: 17,063
• North West: 228,675
• Western Cape: 646,529

Click animation to view from the start.

READ MORE: The nine provinces of South Africa

International migration

South Africa’s international migration rates tend to be positive – more people move here, particularly from the rest of Africa, than leave.

From mid-2011 to mid-2021 net international migration into the country was 2.7 million. Most of the migrants (2.8 million) were from elsewhere in Africa, with a further net migration of 176,120 Indian/Asian people.

The total was offset by the net loss of 286,611 white people to other countries.

Net international migration for South Africa, 2011 to 2021:

• African: 2,850,656
• Indian/Asian: 176,120
• White: -286,611
• Total: 2,740,165

Trends in South Africa’s population from 1960

Age structure

There’s a lot of talk of South Africa’s population being dominated by the youth. But as the graphic below shows, we’re less youthful than we have been for decades.

The end of apartheid, better healthcare, widespread social welfare and greater economic opportunities all mean South Africans are now able to live longer lives – reducing the proportion of children and youth in our total population. See the actual figures for selected years.

READ MORE: Infographic: South Africa’s population and age structure from 1960 to 2015

Urbanisation

From 1960 to the late 1980s, apartheid laws kept families and communities in poor rural areas. Young men alone were allowed to move to the cities, where their labour was valuable.

After the end of apartheid, from the mid-1990s, urbanisation increased rapidly. In the last 20 years, much of the migration from rural areas has been to Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city since 1950.

READ MORE: Infographic: South Africa’s urban and rural population from 1960 to 2015

Life expectancy

Charting South Africans’ life expectancy is to track the country’s modern history. In 1960, a time of terrible apartheid abuse, an average newborn child was expected to have a lifespan of only 52 years – 50 years for boys. In 2015, life expectancy was 62 years.

In between, life expectancy has risen and fallen. The most severe drop was during the crisis of the HIV and Aids epidemic from 1995 to 2005. In 2005, life expectancy was the same as it had been in 1960.

READ MORE: Infographic: Life expectancy in South Africa from 1960 to 2015

Child mortality

The death rate of children is the starkest indicator of the health of a country’s society and economy. In 1974 South Africa’s mortality rate – deaths per 1,000 live births – was 88.1 for infants under a year and 125.5 for under-fives. By 2016 it had dropped to 34.2 for infants and 43.3 for under-fives – the lowest rate yet recorded.

READ MORE: Infographic: Child mortality in South Africa from 1974 to 2016

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

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In between, life expectancy has risen and fallen. The most severe drop was during the crisis of the HIV and Aids epidemic, from 1995 to 2005. In 2005, life expectancy was the same as it had been in 1960.

After antiretroviral medication to treat HIV became available in all state hospitals and clinics in 2005, life expectancy rose again until, in 2015, is was where it had been in 1994.

Read more: HIV and Aids in South Africa

Other periods of our history can also be recognised.

The economic growth of the 1960s and early 1970s, spurred by South Africa’s mineral wealth, created many more jobs – and people could expect to live longer. But from the 1970s life expectancy began to level out. The country’s economy was hit hard by the 1974 oil crisis, and continued to stagnate through the 1980s. South Africa was increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, and the cracks of an inherently inefficient economy designed to exclude the majority began to show.

The 1980s were also a time of violence, when the country came dangerously close to civil war.

Life expectancy rose again in the late 1980s, when apartheid was slowly reformed, and early 1990s, after apartheid was finally abandoned.

Read more: South Africa’s population

What is life expectancy?

Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.

Life expectancy in 1960

Total life expectancy: 52 years
Male life expectancy: 50 years
Female life expectancy: 54 years

Life expectancy in 1965

Total life expectancy: 54 years
Male life expectancy: 52 years
Female life expectancy: 56 years

Life expectancy in 1970

Total life expectancy: 56 years
Male life expectancy: 53 years
Female life expectancy: 59 years

Life expectancy in 1975

Total life expectancy: 57 years
Male life expectancy: 54 years
Female life expectancy: 61 years

Life expectancy in 1980

Total life expectancy: 58 years
Male life expectancy: 54 years
Female life expectancy: 61 years

Life expectancy in 1985

Total life expectancy: 60 years
Male life expectancy: 56 years
Female life expectancy: 63 years

Life expectancy in 1990

Total life expectancy: 62 years
Male life expectancy: 58 years
Female life expectancy: 66 years

Life expectancy in 1995

Total life expectancy: 61 years
Male life expectancy: 58 years
Female life expectancy: 65 years

Life expectancy in 2000

Total life expectancy: 56 years
Male life expectancy: 53 years
Female life expectancy: 60 years

Life expectancy in 2005

Total life expectancy: 53 years
Male life expectancy: 50 years
Female life expectancy: 55 years

Life expectancy in 2010

Total life expectancy: 56 years
Male life expectancy: 53 years
Female life expectancy: 59 years

Life expectancy in 2015

Total life expectancy: 62 years
Male life expectancy: 58 years
Female life expectancy: 66 years

Researched, written and designed by Mary Alexander.
Updated  16 August 2021.

The post Infographic: Life expectancy in South Africa from 1960 to 2015 appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

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READ MORE: HIV and Aids in South Africa

The presidents

• FW de Klerk was apartheid South Africa’s last State President. He held office from 15 August 1989 to 10 May 1994.
• Nelson Mandela was democratic South Africa’s first President. He held office from 10 May 1994 to 14 June 1999.
• Thabo Mbeki was democratic South Africa’s second President. He held office from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008.
• Kgalema Motlanthe was democratic South Africa’s third President. He held office from 25 September 2008 to 9 May 2009.
• Jacob Zuma was democratic South Africa’s fourth President. He held office from 9 May 2009 to 14 February 2018.
• Cyril Ramaphosa is democratic South Africa’s fifth President. He took office on 15 February 2018.

Written, researched and designed by Mary Alexander
Updated 14 October 2019

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

The post Infographic: HIV and Aids in South Africa 1990 to 2016 appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 22 April 2024

HIV can be cured with gene therapy. That’s the false claim circulating on Facebook in the southern African country of Zambia since late March 2024.

HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus that, if left untreated, can cause the disease Aids – acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

“HIV CURE GENE THERAPY. DR.MICHAEL MWEYA IS HERE FOR YOU,” reads one version of the claim, with a WhatsApp contact number.*

“HIV CURE. You can end HIV stigma by using Gene therapy,” reads another.

Yet another supposedly explains the “cure”:

Our medicine introduces new and modified genes into cells which make them resistant to the virus. This makes an AAV9 vector containing a genomic payload of HIV-1 specific CRISPR Cas9gRNA editing transgene that is delivered through transduction of cells. This is the only certified final hiv cure worldwide.

It too supplies a WhatsApp number.

The claim can also be seen here, here, here and here.

Zambia has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in Africa. In 2022, according to World Health Organization estimates, about 10.82% of the country’s people in the reproductive age range of 15 to 49 were HIV-positive.

There is still no cure for HIV, although infection with the virus can be managed with antiretroviral medicine.

So where does the false claim come from?

Gene editing experiment a promising step in search for HIV cure

On 19 March scientists at the Amsterdam University Medical Centre in the Netherlands announced the results of an exciting experiment.

Using Crispr gene editing technology, they had managed to remove all traces of HIV from a culture of immune cells in a laboratory.

“These findings represent a pivotal advancement towards designing a cure strategy,” the researchers said in a statement.

But they added: “While these preliminary findings are very encouraging, it is premature to declare that there is a functional HIV cure on the horizon.”

The experiment was in isolated cells, not a human body. And while it holds promise for a possible way to eventually end the infection, it is not a cure.

News of the experiment was widely covered by the Zambia media, as seen here, here, here, here and here.

Whatever those Facebook users are offering at the end of their WhatsApp lines, it’s not an HIV cure, and it’s not Crispr.

* Some claims posted on Facebook and Instagram may have been deleted by users after being rated via Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program.

Published by Africa Check on 25 April 2024

The post Still no cure for HIV and Aids – not even ‘gene therapy’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

A Treatment Action Campaign march in Durban on 18 July 2016 on the opening day of the 21st International Aids Conference. This was the second time South Africa had hosted the conference. The first was in 2000, when both the Aids epidemic and Aids denialism were reaching a point of crisis. (GCIS, CC BY-ND 2.0)

Mary Alexander

Nkosi Johnson, who died of Aids in 2001 at the age of 12. (South African History Online)

On 9 July 2000 an 11-year-old boy, small for his age but sharp in a blue suit and sneakers, stood alone on the stage of the Durban International Convention Centre. He held a microphone too big for his hands. He smiled at the audience.

And as he spoke, he shamed a president.

“Hi. My name is Nkosi Johnson,” he said.

“I live in Melville, Johannesburg, South Africa. I am 11 years old and I have full-blown Aids. I was born HIV-positive.”

It was the 13th International Aids Conference, the first held in Africa.

In the audience were international policy makers, government leaders, health experts – and South African president Thabo Mbeki.

“I hate having Aids because I get very sick,” Johnson told the audience.

“I get very sad when I think of all the other children and babies that are sick with Aids. I just wish that the government can start giving AZT to pregnant HIV mothers to help stop the virus being passed on to their babies. Babies are dying very quickly.”

Poverty, or virus?

When Nkosi Johnson died on 1 June 2001, just 11 months after standing on the stage in Durban, he was 12. Had he lived, he would have turned 36 in 2025.

At the time of his death, Nkosi was thought to be South Africa’s longest-living HIV-infected child.

In 1994, as South Africa became a democracy, the Aids epidemic began to grip communities across the country. People were dying and babies were sick.

Life expectancy fell and death rates rose. The disease tightened its grip through the presidency of Nelson Mandela.

Then, in 1999, Thabo Mbeki became president.

Instead of acknowledging the growing crisis of HIV and taking action to ensure treatment was available in government health facilities, Mbeki embraced Aids denialism.

This fringe theory, espoused by both the well-meaning and charlatans, held that the HI virus did not cause the disease Aids, that Aids drugs such as AZT were toxic (many were, but not as toxic as the disease itself), and that Aids could be managed just with good nutrition and cocktails of vitamins.

Mbeki, the son of Govan Mbeki, was a stalwart in the struggle against apartheid. He was convinced that the deficient immune systems of people with HIV were mainly a result of poverty, not the virus. He was convinced that antiretroviral drugs would make people infected with HIV more sick.

He was convinced. But he was wrong.

Mbeki refused to accept the scientific consensus that contradicted his conviction. He thought he knew better than the scientists. And he was South Africa’s president.

‘How does a virus cause a syndrome?’

In South Africa’s parliament on 20 September 2000, to the approving laughter of MPs, president Thabo Mbeki openly rejected the fact that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (Aids).

People died.

Statistics reveal the tragedy.

In 2000, in South Africa, the lifetime risk of dying of Aids was as high as 50%. The life expectancy of South Africans plummeted, reaching a low of just 51.6 years – 50.1 years for men – in 2005. This was the lowest it had been since 1961, during the worst deprivations of the apartheid era.

Click image for a larger view.

While the disease was spreading through the country, a government policy informed by Aids denialism denied life-saving antiretroviral treatment to hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive people. Among these were HIV-positive pregnant women. Without treatment, the virus easily passes from mothers to their newborns.

By 2000 HIV infection of newborns had climbed to 80,000 a year. The antiretroviral drug nevirapine offered the potential of preventing the infection of up to 40,000 children a year, and was offered to the government for free for five years. The government refused. Instead, it would introduce prevention of mother-to-child-transmission (PMTCT) therapy only in pilot sites, and delay setting these up for a year – denying most mothers and their babies access to treatment.

Click image for a larger view.

In 2002 the mortality rate for children under five was 71.3 per 1,000 live births, higher than that of conflict-ridden countries such as Sudan and Afghanistan.

But 2002 was also a turning point. That year, the Treatment Action Campaign sued the Minister of Health in the High Court to demand that PMTCT therapy be provided to mothers in all state hospitals – in line with South Africans’ constitutional right to access healthcare. The High Court agreed, and the TAC won the case. The government appealed to the Constitutional Court, the highest court.

The Constitutional Court rejected the appeal. In section 135 of its judgement the court ordered the government to remove restrictions on nevirapine and make the drug available in all state hospitals and clinics, to provide HIV counsellors, and to extend testing and counselling throughout South Africa’s public health sector.

Over the next three years, through activism, international pressure and in court, the Aids denialism of the president was rolled back and antiretroviral treatment rolled out to HIV-positive people across the country. When Thabo Mbeki was recalled as president in 2008, denialism was finally abandoned.

Since then South Africa has robustly tackled the HIV pandemic, setting up the world’s largest treatment programme for its people. In March 2017 some 3.8-million people were on publicly funded antiretroviral treatment, according to the Department of Health.

Today HIV is a chronic condition, controlled as many chronic diseases are – such as diabetes – with medication.

Children like Nkosi Johnson, infected with HIV before, during or after birth, now live, flourish and grow into healthy adults – adults who live long lives.

Forty-four million people tested

Testing is a major weapon in the fight against HIV. Simply knowing they are HIV-positive makes people far less likely to risk infecting others.

In 2010, the fight against the pandemic was ramped up with the launch of the world’s biggest operation to test for infection, the HIV Counselling and Testing campaign. Since then 44-million South Africans have tested and know their HIV status. Over 10-million South Africans take the test every year.

Aids-related deaths have declined from 345,185 in 2006, when the disease claimed 49% of all deaths in the country, to 126,755 in 2017, when 25% of all deaths were Aids-related.

The transmission of the virus from mother to child during or after birth – all the potential Nkosi Johnsons – dropped from 70,000 infant infections in 2004 to fewer than 7,000 in 2015.

In 2013 fixed-dose combination antiretroviral medication was introduced, a single tablet which makes complying with treatment that much easier. In 2016 the Department of Health began to roll out treatment to anyone diagnosed as HIV positive, no matter what their CD4 count. This slows down the rate of infection.

An Aids awareness mural on the road into the township outside Beaufort West in the Western Cape. (Chris Kirchhoff, Media Club South Africa)

But HIV is a powerful enemy. There are still problems to be unearthed and tackled.

One is a worrying prevalence of new HIV infection in girls. It is estimated that some 2 000 girls and young women aged 15 to 24 are infected by HIV in South Africa every week. This is by far the highest rate of infection in any age or sex category – and one of the highest infection rates in the world.

HIV thrives in conditions of ignorance and poverty, and in situations of gender inequality. This infection rate is intertwined with other critical social problems directly experienced by South Africa’s young people: high rates of teenage pregnancy, high school drop-out rates, widespread sexual violence, and high youth unemployment.

As an effort to tackle the problem, in late June 2016 South Africa launched the National Campaign for Girls and Young Women. This aims to fight life choices that put young women at risk of HIV: unsafe sex, destructive behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse.

The campaign will involve multiple sectors of society, and work at community level. Another goal is to build young women’s confidence and resilience, and give them greater economic opportunities. It will also target men, encouraging them to help effect the crucial, fundamental change in South Africans’ sexual behaviour.

Working with NGOs and local Aids councils, the new campaign will encourage men – both young and older – to use condoms, stick to one sexual partner and not prey on young girls and women. It will task men with joining the call for safer sexual behaviour and an end to violence and the abuse of women.

The project is supported by over $140-million in funding from the US and German governments and the Global Fund. It will be rolled out over the next three years to 51 municipalities with the highest incidence of new HIV infections. At its core is the principle that our best weapon in South Africa’s new battle against HIV and Aids is education.

This is an edited version of an article ghostwritten for president Cyril Ramaphosa and published by the Daily Maverick on 13 July 2016.

Written, researched and designed by Mary Alexander.
Updated 20 January 2020.

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