South Africa
Discover South Africa
Introduction
South Africa occupies the southern tip of the continent, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet and the land rises from two coastlines to a high interior plateau. That plateau — the Highveld — sits above 1,500 metres, which is why Johannesburg is temperate despite its latitude.
The country holds three capitals by design: Cape Town legislative, Pretoria executive, Bloemfontein judicial, a compromise written into the 1910 union.
It has twelve official languages, the most of any country, and the constitution that recognises them is among the most expansive anywhere — both products of the negotiated transition from apartheid in 1994.
For visitors the draw divides cleanly: the Cape at one end, with mountains, vineyards and cold Atlantic beaches, and the big-game reserves of the northeast at the other, a two-hour flight apart.