South Africa Travel Guide

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South Africa is a visually breathtaking land of vast plains, rolling mountains, golden beaches and barren deserts. The rich game viewing is as spectacular and diverse as South African scenery, with everything from plodding elephants to splashing penguins.

South Africa's cities are also enormously varied, with hustling Johannesburg at its heart, and cosmopolitan Cape Town an enclave of European chic at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

In between find safari lands and quaint towns breaking up the Karoo wilderness, while the seaside fun of Durban and scatterings of coastal resorts line the pretty southern Garden Route.

Much diversity is also found in South Africa's people, with 11 national languages drawn from its indigenous African population, and a colonialist legacy that brought Afrikaners, English and Indians.

It is the plentiful wildlife and accompanying luxurious safari lodges that are South Africa's major draw, with the world-famous Kruger National Park in particular delivering uniquely African sights and memories.

Geography

The Republic of South Africa fills the southern tip of the continent and is lapped by the Atlantic to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. It totally encloses the independent kingdom of Lesotho, and is bordered by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland to the north.

A vast, interior plateau has sharp escarpments that rise above the lowland plains. Mountainous regions include the Drakensberg and Magaliesberg.

The west coast is arid, while the south and southeast coasts are semi-arid, with vegetation fringed by sandy beaches and rocky coves. In contrast, the subtropical northeast has lush wetlands and coastal forests.

Of its nine provinces, Gauteng, which houses Johannesburg and Pretoria in the northeast, is the smallest and most densely populated.