Africa · Capital Pretoria

South Africa

South Africa's best placing is 8th of 135 for railways.

Best placing: #8Railways
Top 10 placings: 1 / 17
Population: 64.7 million
Land area: 1.2 million km²

Every ranking

Best placings first. The bar shows how far up the ranking South Africa is.

Railways

#8 of 135

30,400 km of railway

1st in Africa · Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) · 2021

Airports

#13 of 193

573 airports

1st in Africa · Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) · 2025

Population

#24 of 195

64,747,319 people

6th in Africa · World Bank · 2025

Land area

#24 of 194

1,213,090 km² of land

9th in Africa · World Bank · 2023

Forest

#39 of 194

169,409 km² of forest

13th in Africa · World Bank · 2023

GDP

#38 of 182

427,184,325,997 US$ (current prices)

1st in Africa · World Bank · 2025

Railways per person

#35 of 134

469.52 km of railway per million people

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) · 2021

Coastline

#40 of 151

2,798 km of coastline

4th in Africa · Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Railways by area

#42 of 133

25.06 km of railway per 1,000 km²

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) · 2021

Land area per person

#62 of 194

0.019 km² of land per person

World Bank · 2023

Airports per person

#73 of 192

8.85 airports per million people

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) · 2025

Airports by area

#91 of 191

4.72 airports per 10,000 km²

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) · 2025

Forest per person

#95 of 194

0.0026 km² of forest per person

World Bank · 2023

GDP per person

#100 of 182

6,598 GDP per person (US$)

World Bank · 2025

Population by area

#133 of 194

53.37 people per km²

World Bank · 2025

Forest by area

#136 of 194

14.0 % of land area covered by forest

World Bank · 2023

Rainfall

#143 of 179

495 mm of precipitation per year

38th in Africa · World Bank · 2022

South Africa

Every ranking

More countries in Africa