ABSTRACT
Located at the southern tip of the African continent, South Africa covers an area of 1,219,090 km2 between 22° and 35° south (a north-south distance of 1,800 km) and 16° and 33° east (a west-east distance of over 1,500 km). South Africa is Africa’s tenth largest country by land area and is more than five times the size of the UK and twice the size of France (Fig. 2.1). With an estimated population of 40.5 million in 1996, South Africa was the fifth most populous African country - after Nigeria (118.4 million), Egypt (64.5 million), Ethiopia (60.1 million) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (48.0 million).
