Culture and Lifestyle
Renowned for it’s year round sunshine, South Africa is situated half way between the Equator and Antarctic and as a result has the most temperate climate of all the African nations. As a southern hemisphere country it is important to remember that the seasons work in reverse to those in the northern hemisphere with the warmer spring and summer months falling between October to May with a cooler drier autumn and winter following on from June to September.
The country is a tale of two climates with a more humid, sultry and subtropical feel to the coastline of the Indian Ocean whereas the East Coast has more of a Mediterranean feeling climate offering temperate days, winter rainfalls and winds with frosty nights (June to Sept).
Snowfall can be found in the Drakensberg range during the winter months although it must be said that South Africa is not renowned for its skiing tourism and visitors should not expect to surf the slopes! As the world’s third most biologically diverse country, South Africa is rightly keen to preserve this crown and environmental issues are at the forefront of discussions amongst the country’s leaders.
Years of political uprising meant that urbanisation went unplanned resulting in many townships that lacked adequate facilities and infrastructure. Other issues for South Africa include water shortages (it receives on average 500mm of rainfall per year) which are in part relieved by the damning and modification of rivers and lakes. Additionally land degradation (estimated to be 25% of South African land) is also serious concern as former homeland areas suffer from years of overgrazing and over cropping.
South Africa’s robust economy is considered to be the powerhouse of all the African continents economies and contributes to a quarter of GDP throughout the continent. The future is bright for the South African economy and it continues to expand largely as it has done since 1999 with average growth at 3.5% per year (5% in 2006 as measured in 4th quarter of 2006).
As the most developed of the African nations, South Africa enjoys a strong physical and economic infrastructure and its key performances are in markets such as natural and mineral resources, manufacturing and tourism, accounting for three quarters of its output. There are four main metropolitan areas dominate economic activity these are Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.
Employment, national and external debt have all fallen since 2001 whilst inflation remains constant in the stable economy and at approximately 4% is considerably less than the nearly 10% being experienced during the apartheid years.
The South African Rand is considered to be one of the most undervalued currencies in the world today and visitors from the UK will be pleasantly surprised at the apparent moderate pricing as a result of this and keen exchange rates.
