04/07/2024
South Africa or Southern Africa: what’s the difference?
The African continent is massive: it’s around 1.25 times bigger than North America, and contains over 54 countries. That’s why it can be helpful to segment it into geographical regions, such as West Africa, North Africa and East Africa. However, when it comes to the south, we run into a problem …
When we talk about ‘West Africa’, it’s widely understood that this refers to a number of countries. But when we say ‘South Africa’, people can misunderstand what exactly is being described. ‘South Africa’ is the name of just one country in the south of Africa.
The country of South Africa doesn’t cover the full geographic south of Africa.
To get around this confusion, we need to correctly differentiate the terms ‘southern Africa’ and ‘South Africa’ in the way we speak about them. As a general rule: Use the term ‘South Africa’ when referring to the single country. Use ‘southern Africa’ when referring to the region. Southern Africa usually includes the countries of: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Ntaba African Safaris
ntabaafrica.com
