The Republic of South Africa, is located on the southern tip of the African continent and inhabits 1,219,912 square kilometres (471,011 square miles) of land. It is neighboured by Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique to the north and Swaziland in the east. South Africa wholly encompasses the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. The country has a population of more than 47 million that spans across nine provinces. The provinces are the Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Northern Cape, North West and the Western Cape. The Northern Cape is by far the largest province, but also has the smallest population while the smallest province is Gauteng, which has the densest population.

South Africa is a democracy with the president as the head of state. The country has clear separation of powers, with the legislative seated in the parliament and headed by the speaker of the house, administrative with the president and his cabinet (also members of parliament) and the judiciary headed by the chief justice. The constitution of South Africa however, is the supreme law and supersedes all branches of government. South Africans are proud of their constitution and it is considered to be one of the most progressive and liberal of its kind in the world. The country has three capitals: Cape Town (legislative), Pretoria (administrative) and Bloemfontein (judicial). The government is further divided into three tiers: national, provincial and local. There are 11 recognised official languages but English is used in road signs, hotels, commerce, banking, government and official documents. The country is two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (UTC +2) and has an average of 8.5 hours of sunshine per day.