South Africa (Republic of South Africa; Republiek van Suid-Afrika), is a republic of Southern Africa, washed by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean to the west and those of the Indian Ocean to the east, north borders with Botswana, northwest with Namibia, north-east with the Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland, and Lesotho is an enclave located entirely within the borders of South Africa. The country has three capital cities, Cape Town, the legislative capital, Pretoria, the administrative capital, and Bloemfontein, judicial capital. South Africa occupies the extreme southern part of Africa, Cape Agulhas (34° 49' 58" south latitude and 20° 00' 12'' east longitude) is the most southern point of the continent. 

The territory of the country is largely made up of highlands called Veld, they occupy two-thirds of the nation and are divided into three main areas, calls, depending on their altitude, Highveld, Bushveld and Middle Veld. The Bushveld occupies the north-east section of the country, is an area of savannah, which descend gradually to the west towards the Limpopo River and the border with Botswana. To the south west of the Bushveld is the plateau of the Witwatersrand, with an average height of 600 metres, which has the largest deposits of gold in the world. The Middle Veld, occupies the western section of the plateau, that towards the Kalahari, and presents heights of less than 1 000 metres. The Highveld area is the largest of the three, has an average of about 1 500 meters, and consists of mild undulations, around the plateau towards the coast there is a raised edge, said Great Escarpment, which rises on the east side to form the chain of the Drakensberg, 1 100 km long, reaching the highest heights in the territory of Lesotho with Mount Thabana Ntlenyana (3 482 metres), but belongs to the Drakensberg also the South African highest mountain, Njesuthi (3 408 metres). Beyond the Great Escarpment, extends the alluvial coastal plain called Low Veld, only in the area of the Cape Peninsula mountains bordering directly on the sea, forming a succession of coastal headlands with cliffs. Among those mountains and the Great Escarpment extend the semi-desert basins of the Great and Little Karoo, which occupy the center of the country. Between the rivers, the Orange (1 860 km long), is the longest river in South Africa, it rises in the Lesotho highlands and crosses the Veld until flows in the Atlantic Ocean, on the border with Namibia. Other important rivers in the country are the Vaal, the most important of Orange tributaries, and Limpopo (1 600 km long), which marks the border with Botswana and Zimbabwe and flows in the Indian Ocean in Mozambique. 

The South African economy is the most important and developed in the African continent, alone it produces more than a quarter of income of the continent, the country is rich in mineral resources, it's the world largest producer of platinum, gold and cromite, are extracted gold, diamonds, coal, nickel, platinum, uranium, manganese, copper, chromium, vanadium, titanium, asbestos, fluorite, tin, and iron. Very important is also the industry, the main industrial centres of the country are Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Port Elizabeth, between the major industries those steel, petrochemical, chemical, textile, agro-food, etc.. Very important is also tourism thanks to the many national parks and the natural beauty of the landscape of the country.