Provinces of South Africa

The Union of South Africa was established in 1910 by combining four British colonies: the Cape Colony, the Natal Colony, the Transvaal Colony and the Orange River Colony (the latter two were, before the Second Boer War, independent republics known as the South African Republic and the Orange Free State). These colonies became the four original provinces of the Union: Cape Province, Transvaal Province, Natal Province and Orange Free State Province.

Segregation of the black population started as early as 1913, with ownership of land by the black majority being restricted to certain areas totalling about 13% of the country. From the late 1950s, these areas were gradually consolidated into "homelands", also called "bantustans". Four of these homelands were established as quasi-independent nation states of the black population during the apartheid era. In 1976, the homeland of Transkei was the first to accept independence from South Africa, and although this independence was never acknowledged by any other country, three other homelands – Bophuthatswana (1977), Venda (1979) and Ciskei (1981) – followed suit.

On 27 April 1994, the date of the first non-racial elections and of the adoption of the Interim Constitution, all of these provinces and homelands were dissolved, and nine new provinces were established. The boundaries of these provinces were established in 1993 by a Commission on the Demarcation/Delimitation of Regions created by CODESA, and were broadly based on planning regions demarcated by the Development Bank of Southern Africa in the 1980s,^[2][3] and amalgamated from existing magisterial districts, with some concessions to political parties that wished to consolidate their power bases, by transferring districts between the proposed provinces.^[4][5] The definitions of the new provinces in terms of magisterial districts were found in Schedule 1 of the Interim Constitution.

On 11 July 2003, the 11th amendment to the fifth constitution renamed the Northern Province to Limpopo. On 1 March 2006, the 12th and 13th amendments altered the boundaries of 7 provinces. On 3 April 2009 the 16th amendment altered the boundaries of the North West and Gauteng provinces.

South Africa's provinces are governed, in different ways, on a national, provincial and local level.^[6]

Nationally, there is the National Council of Provinces, one of the houses of Parliament. Then there is the provincial government and, below that, the administration of district and metropolitan municipalities.

National Council of Provinces

South Africa has two houses of parliament: the National Assembly, and the National Council of Provinces.^[6] The second exists to ensure that the interests of each province are protected in the laws passed by the National Assembly.

Each one of South Africa's nine provinces sends 10 representatives to the National Council of Provinces. Six of these are permanent members of the council, and four are special delegates.

Provincial government

Each province is governed by a unicameral legislature. The size of the legislature is proportional to population, ranging from 30 members in the Northern Cape to 80 in KwaZulu-Natal. The legislatures are elected every five years by a system of party-list proportional representation; by convention, they are all elected on the same day, at the same time as the National Assembly election.^[7]

The provincial legislature elects, from amongst its members, a Premier, who is the head of the executive. The Premier chooses an Executive Council consisting of between five and ten members of the legislature, which is the cabinet of the provincial government.^[7] The Members of the Executive Council (MECs) are the provincial equivalent of ministers.

The powers of the provincial government are limited to specific topics listed in the national constitution. On some of these topics – for example, agriculture, education, health and public housing – the province's powers are shared with the national government, which can establish uniform standards and frameworks for the provincial governments to follow; on other topics the provincial government has exclusive power.^[8]

The provinces do not have their own court systems, as the administration of justice is the responsibility of the national government.

Province	Name in the most spoken native language[9]	Capital	Largest city	Area[10]: 9	Population (2022)[11]	Density (2022)	Map
Eastern Cape	iMpuma-Koloni (Xhosa)	Bhisho (Bisho)	Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth)	168,966 km2 (65,238 sq mi)	7,230,204	42.8/km2 (111/sq mi)
Free State	Freistata (Sotho)	Bloemfontein	Bloemfontein	129,825 km2 (50,126 sq mi)	2,964,412	22.8/km2 (59/sq mi)
Gauteng	eGoli (Zulu)	Johannesburg	Johannesburg	18,178 km2 (7,019 sq mi)	15,099,422	830.6/km2 (2,151/sq mi)
KwaZulu-Natal	iKwaZulu-Natali (Zulu)	Pietermaritzburg[n 1]	Durban	94,361 km2 (36,433 sq mi)	12,423,907	131.7/km2 (341/sq mi)
Limpopo	Limpopo (Pedi)	Polokwane (Pietersburg)	Polokwane	125,754 km2 (48,554 sq mi)	6,572,720	52.3/km2 (135/sq mi)
Mpumalanga	iMpumalanga (Swazi)	Mbombela (Nelspruit)	Mbombela	76,495 km2 (29,535 sq mi)	5,143,324	67.2/km2 (174/sq mi)
North West	Bokone Bophirima (Tswana)	Mahikeng (Mafikeng)	Rustenburg	104,882 km2 (40,495 sq mi)	3,804,548	36.3/km2 (94/sq mi)
Northern Cape	Noord-Kaap (Afrikaans)	Kimberley	Kimberley	372,889 km2 (143,973 sq mi)	1,355,946	3.6/km2 (9.3/sq mi)
Western Cape[n 2]	Wes-Kaap (Afrikaans)	Cape Town	Cape Town	129,462 km2 (49,986 sq mi)	7,433,019	57.4/km2 (149/sq mi)
Republic of South Africa	iRiphabhuliki yaseNingizimu Afrika (Zulu)	Pretoria, Bloemfontein Cape Town[n 3][12]	Johannesburg	1,220,813 km2 (471,359 sq mi)	62,027,503	50.8/km2 (132/sq mi)

Footnotes:

Provincial acronyms

Province	Capital	Peak population	Location
Cape of Good Hope (1910–1994)	Cape Town	6,125,335
Natal (1910–1994)	Pietermaritzburg	2,430,753
Orange Free State (1910–1994)	Bloemfontein	2,193,062
Transvaal (1910–1994)	Pretoria	9,491,265
Homelands	Capital	Peak population	Location
Bophuthatswana (1977–1994) †	Mmabatho	1,478,950
Ciskei (1972–1994) †	Bisho	677,920
Gazankulu (1971–1994)	Giyani	954,771
KaNgwane (1981–1994)	Louieville Schoemansdal (de facto)	779,240
KwaNdebele (1981–1994)	KwaMhlanga	404,246
KwaZulu (1981–1994)	Nongoma (until 1980) Ulundi (1980–1994)	5,524,774
Lebowa (1972–1994)	Lebowakgomo	2,740,587
QwaQwa (1974–1994)	Phuthaditjhaba	342,886
Transkei (1976–1994) †	Umtata	2,323,650
Venda (1979–1994) †	Thohoyandou	558,797
Mandates	Capital	Peak population
South West Africa	Windhoek	1,415,000

Footnotes:

† States for which the homeland was quasi-independent.

• Elections in South Africa
• List of municipalities in South Africa
• List of renamed places in South Africa
• List of South African provinces by Human Development Index
• Members of the Executive Council (MEC)
• Municipalities of South Africa
• Premier (South Africa)
• Prince Edward Islands
• Proposals for South Africa to annex Lesotho
• Provincial governments of South Africa
• Provincial legislature (South Africa)
• Telephone numbers in South Africa
• Vehicle registration plates of South Africa
• Walvis Bay
• ISO 3166-2:ZA

Transportation

• List of national routes in South Africa
• List of provincial routes in South Africa
• List of regional routes in South Africa
• List of Metropolitan Routes in South Africa
  • Metropolitan Routes in East London
  • Metropolitan Routes in Cape Town
  • Metropolitan Routes in Johannesburg
  • Metropolitan Routes in Pretoria
  • Metropolitan Routes in Durban
  • Metropolitan Routes in Bloemfontein
  • Metropolitan Routes in Port Elizabeth
  • Metropolitan Routes in Pietermaritzburg
• Numbered routes in South Africa