South Africa's Patterns of Development & Distribution (DP IB Geography)

Case Study: South Africa's Population Distribution

Background

• The Republic of South Africa is the southernmost country of the African continent

• It has a land area of 1.22 million km², with a population density of 50 per km² 

• It is the 2nd most populous country south of the equator, after Tanzania, with 60.6 million people and the 24th most populous country in the world

• Approximately, 69.0 % of the population is urban

• The median age in South Africa is 27.6 years

• Average life expectancy is 60 years (men) and 66 years (women)

• A large plateau dominates the centre of the country, with rolling hills falling to plains and the coast

• The climate is mostly semiarid; subtropical along the east coast; with sunny days and cool nights

• South Africa has 3 capitals

  • Pretoria (administrative capital)

  • Cape Town (legislative capital)

  • Bloemfontein (judicial capital) and 9 provinces

Distribution of population

• The main ethnic groups in South Africa are:

  • Black African 81.4%,

  • Coloured 8.2%

  • White 7.3%

  • Indian/Asian 2.7%,

  • Other 0.4%

• The eastern half of the country is more densely populated than the west

• The province of Gauteng, has the highest concentration of people with 830 people per km² (20% of South Africa’s population)

• With concentrations of people inland around and along the southern and south-eastern coast

Distribution of South Africa's population

• South Africa’s total GDP for 2022 was R6.6 trillion ($358 billion US) roughly US$6,776 per capita 

• Gauteng province is the centre for economy, contributing 33.1% to national GDP in 2022

• Gauteng is the smallest province with the highest density and is the core region

• Northern Cape province has the lowest density of less than 4 people per km² 

Population Density per Province in South Africa

Data from 2022 South Africa Census

Economic distribution 

• Finance is the biggest industry in Gauteng and the Western Cape

• Mining dominates in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and the Northern Cape

• KwaZulu-Natal’s major industry is manufacturing, although it has the country’s largest farming sector

• Government services - such as health, education and administrative spending -  are focused in the Eastern Cape and Free State

Core-periphery 

• Population size correlates with each province’s contribution to the national economy

• Gauteng has the largest and therefore, is the core of South Africa and dominates with finance 

• The northeastern provinces dominate in secondary and tertiary economic activities of mining, manufacturing and government services

• The Western Cape is mostly tertiary economic activities with finance and tourism

• The economic periphery is to the north-west of South Africa:

  • Includes the Northern Cape and Free State

  • The Free State is mostly maize and Northern Cape is an emerging renewable energy hub

• South Africa has some of the highest levels of inequality and the development gap can be seen in a range of areas:

  • 18.2 million people are living in extreme poverty of less than $2.15 a day

  • 20% of the population holds over 68% of income, with 40% seeing just 7% of income

  • Unemployment remains high, at around 35% and nearly 60% of the country’s youth (15-24 yrs) are unemployed

  • Income per capita in Gauteng is twice that of rural provinces such as the Eastern Cape and Limpopo

  • Electricity supply is regularly cut (reaching 9 hours a day in 2023), this impacts economic activity and increases operating costs for businesses, particularly those that rely on diesel generators

  • 88.5% of the population live in formal housing and just 59.7% have access to piped water in their homes

  • Poverty was an estimated 62.6% in 2022; the Eastern Cape is the poorest region

  • Only 24% of rural households have access to piped water

  • Literacy rates is 95.3% with Gauteng and Western Cape seeing literacy rates of 98.9%

• In some areas, the unemployment rate in rural areas is over 30%. This leads to:

  • Increased poverty

  • Difficulty attracting businesses to these regions

  • The periphery is becoming even more dependent on primary economic activities to survive

• Regional inequality has led to significant rural-urban migration in South Africa

Case Study: South Africa’s Internal Migration

• Migration has been a major part of the development of South Africa, particularly unskilled labour migration from peripheral countries such as Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho and Malawi to the mining regions

• Colonialism created economic node/centre, which in turn brought continued uneven development of the country

• After apartheid and the relaxing of migration rules, internal migration has been driven by economics where the majority of South Africans move from the poorer provinces to the richer ones, and from rural areas to the cities

• Gauteng is South Africa’s wealthiest province, mostly a city region, it is the centre of the country’s economy

• Between 2016 and 2021 Gauteng saw the largest net migration rate  of 1.5 million people population and continues to increase in number

  • The majority of migrants came from Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal

  • Johannesburg City saw the largest number of internal migrants

• Western Cape, North West, Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape also experienced positive net migration rates

  • Western Cape received migrants from the Eastern Cape and Gauteng, with Cape Town the biggest recipient

  • North West saw immigration from Gauteng to Rustenburg and Madibeng

  • Mpumalanga had a positive in migration from Gauteng

  • The Northern Cape, the largest but least populated province, saw a positive net migration from the North West province

• Four provinces experienced negative net migration - Limpopo, Free State, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal

  • Free State and Limpopo both had negative net migration to Gauteng

  • Eastern Cape saw negative migration to Western Cape and secondly to Gauteng

  • KwaZulu-Natal had a negative net migration with the majority migrating to Gauteng

Internal migration pre and post apartheid

• From 1960 to the late 1980s, apartheid laws kept families and communities in poor rural areas

• Forced migration of many black people to the homelands such as Transkei and KwaZulu-Natal

• Young, black men were allowed to move to the cities, where their labour was valuable

• However, they were forced to live separately in ‘townships’, and needed both residential and work permits to live in the restricted areas

• Townships were a collection of nondescript settlements found on the outskirts of cities

  • Soweto (South-Western Township) for example, was a separate residential area for black African workers in the gold mines around Johannesburg as they were not permitted to live in other ‘white-designated’ areas of Johannesburg

  • Johannesburg's Chinese community, during the apartheid era, was not legally classified as ‘Asian’, but as ‘coloured’ and they too had their own separate townships

• After the end of apartheid, from the mid-1990s, internal migration increased, particularly for black South Africans

• Urbanisation grew, with Johannesburg seeing the largest increase of rural to urban migration, leading to Johannesburg being the largest and only megacity in South Africa

• Over 67.5% of the total population of South Africa now live in urban areas and cities

International migration

• Most Africans escaping from violence tend to seek security and prosperity elsewhere on their own continent 

• Of the world's 17 million displaced Africans. approximately 3% are in Europe, despite the media coverage

• The number of displaced people in Africa has increased by around 20% due to unresolved crises in:

  • Libya

  • South Sudan

  • Central African Republic

  • Northern Mozambique

  • Ethiopia

  • Cameroon's north-west and south-west regions

• Overall, the 'Rainbow Nation' of South Africa (SA) has attracted roughly 3.2 million migrants to its wealth and stability from elsewhere in Africa

• Most migrants are from neighbouring countries, but also Morocco or Eritrea and mostly head towards Johannesburg

• Neighbourhoods such as Mayfair in Johannesburg are almost entirely populated by East Africans

• Unfortunately, there have been repeated outbreaks of violence towards migrants, which are caused by a shortage of jobs, housing, and services

• Over a million asylum seekers are still waiting to be processed, making South Africa the country with the highest number of pending claims in the world

• With increased European resistance to accepting new migrants, it is unlikely the flow of migrants to South Africa will slow 

Map of forced migration in South Africa during apartheid