ion, Wetlands, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Geography-note: South Africa completely surrounds Lesotho and almost
completely surrounds Swaziland

@South Africa:People

Population: 42,834,520 (July 1998 est.)
note: South Africa took a census 10 October 1996 which showed a total
of 37,859,000 (after a 6.8% adjustment for underenumeration based on a
post-enumeration survey); this figure is still about 10% below
projections from earlier censuses; since the full results of the
census have not been released for analysis, the numbers shown for
South Africa do not take into consideration the results of this 1996
census

Age structure:
0-14 years: 35% (male 7,502,396; female 7,366,144)
15-64 years: 61% (male 12,947,521; female 13,079,892)
65 years and over: 4% (male 778,767; female 1,159,800) (July 1998
est.)

Population growth rate: 1.42% (1998 est.)

Birth rate: 26.43 births/1,000 population (1998 est.)

Death rate: 12.28 deaths/1,000 population (1998 est.)

Net migration rate: 0.08 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1998 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.01 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.98 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.67 male(s)/female (1998 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 52.04 deaths/1,000 live births (1998 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 55.65 years
male: 53.56 years
female: 57.8 years (1998 est.)

Total fertility rate: 3.16 children born/woman (1998 est.)

Nationality:
noun: South African(s)
adjective: South African

Ethnic groups: black 75.2%, white 13.6%, Colored 8.6%, Indian 2.6%

Religions: Christian 68% (includes most whites and Coloreds, about 60%
of blacks and about 40% of Indians), Muslim 2%, Hindu 1.5% (60% of
Indians), traditional and animistic 28.5%

Languages: 11 official languages, including Afrikaans, English,
Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 81.8%
male: 81.9%
female: 81.7% (1995 est.)

@South Africa:Government

Country name:
conventional long form: Republic of South Africa
conventional short form: South Africa
abbreviation: RSA

Data code: SF

Government type: republic

National capital: Pretoria (administrative); Cape Town (legislative);
Bloemfontein (judicial)

Administrative divisions: 9 provinces; Eastern Cape, Free State,
Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North-West,