South Africa Map – Provinces, Minerals and Income Inequality
GeographyRegions & CountriesAges 16–17
Use it with your class: students open it from a link or a QR code, with no account needed.
Next in Regions & Countries
An interactive map of South Africa built from latitude/longitude coordinates, showing its nine provinces. Click a province to see its area, average annual rainfall, population from the 2022 census and share of GDP; turn on the minerals layer to see the world-famous gold, platinum, diamond and coal regions. Drag the year slider from 1996 to 2022 to track national population growth; the text notes that Gauteng covers only 1.5% of the area yet generates a third of GDP, illustrating the widest wealth gap in the world.
Lesson: Location, natural conditions, population, society and economy of South Africa
What it shows
South Africa combines a high interior plateau with contrasting coasts: the east is wetter, warmed by a warm ocean current, while the west is dry beside the cold Benguela Current, and the Cape Town area has a Mediterranean climate with winter rain. Its economy was built on world-class deposits of gold, platinum, diamonds and coal. The map compares the nine provinces by rainfall, population and share of GDP, showing how economic activity is concentrated in small Gauteng, around the Witwatersrand goldfields, and how the legacy of apartheid still leaves one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world.
How to use
Choose the Physical layer and click provinces from east to west to compare average annual rainfall. Switch to Population and then Economy, and for each province compare its share of GDP with its share of area and population, starting with Gauteng. Turn on the main mineral regions and major cities to relate them to the richest provinces. Press Run or change the Census year to follow national population growth from 1996 to 2022.
Parameters you can change
- Data layer Physical – average annual rainfall, Population – 2022 population, Economy – share of GDP
- Census year Year 1996, Year 2001, Year 2011, Year 2022
- Selected province View whole country, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, Northern Cape
- Show main mineral regions
- Show major cities
Questions to explore
- Why does Gauteng, the smallest province, produce about a third of South Africa's GDP?
- How does average annual rainfall change from the east coast to the west coast, and why?
- Which minerals are found near the major cities, and how has mining shaped where people live?
