Talk:South Africa

Archived discussions Talk:South Africa/Archive 2005-2011

Formatting and language conventions For articles about South Africa, please use the 24-hour clock to show times, e.g. 09:00-12:00 and 18:00-00:00. Please show prices in this format: R100, and not 100 R, or ZAR100. {{ZAR|100}} will give you: R100 Please use South African spelling.

9 cities revisited

I removed the following two cities from the list because the '9 city' rule had been broken. If anyone feels the following are more deserving to ge back on the list, then go ahead:

• East London – Coastal city in the Eastern Cape situated close to the Wild Coast

• Newcastle – 3rd largest city in KwaZulu-Natal, 10th largest in South Africa and Capital of Northern KZN. Famous for Steel Production, Coal Mining, Heavy Industry and is South Africa's Textile Industry Capital.

--Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:49, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello, the cities referred to above, need not be forgotten, there's plenty of other highlighting opportunities in other sections of the article to include them.

Country Guide Status

I'm a bit new to this, but from what I've read, surely this article deserves more than 'Outline' status? Ajof (talk) 22:35, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Welcome! And have a look at Wikivoyage:Country guide status. Are all the "Cities" and "Other destinations" at Usable status or better? If not, it can't be Usable. There are other criteria, too. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:32, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Laundry list of flights

Currently "By plane" has a bulleted list of about 50 flights (I didn't count them), with a description of how frequent these flights are. The information may or (more likely) may not be up to date, but IMO this long list looks sort of ugly. Should we remove it? ϒpsilon (talk) 18:54, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

remove, but first check on the city articles that there is some mention of flights. And maybe ensure at least a mention of the internal airports on this page. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:08, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Driving in South Africa article?

The get around by car section has been greatly expanded as of lately, which is wonderful (thanks to User:CharlieCares). Should we dedicate a separate Driving in South Africa article for the details, like we've done for many countries already? ϒpsilon (talk) 15:48, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all. Being someone with a vast driving experience in the Southern African region, I can say from first hand experience, such a focused article would be a good idea. Despite some regions having deteriorated through maintenance and improvement neglect for some years, the situation is currently being addressed. Notwithstanding, South Africa still boasts an excellent road network and related infractures, a largely pleasant and helpful population, unique cultural and scenic experiences and affordable costs, more so if taking major currencies exchange rates into account. Some may bring out the crime levels as a deterrent, however, the prevalence of the worst criminal activity, is concentrated around a few areas outside tourist interest. Car highjacking is by enlarge a well planed hit, where sindicates place orders for wanted models and teams study a target. Smash and grag at traffic lights is a crime of opportunity, where basic precautions such as keeping cell phones, hand bags or valuables out of sight go a long way to prevent it. Pickpocketing or mugging is very rare in tourist popular spots but the same keep valuables out of sight principle applies. Credit card cloning can be bad in certain areas, therefore, well advertised precautions also apply, including not handing your card to anyone by demanding you handle the payment devices yourself only. Do not accept any unsolicited help from anyone in busy places. If in need of help, look for uniformed police or private security agents. All in all, personal safety requirements in SA or neighbouring countries is not that much different than in Europe, America's or Southeast Asia. The locals from quiet areas may be more curious about outsiders, but mean no harm. Keeping a few packets of sweets and candy bars to give away in the eventuality of requiring assistance or just because you want to, goes a long way as a thank you or to establish good will. In certain rural areas, people maybe poor and show humbleness out of respect but are not stupid or undeserving of equal consideration. In a nutshell, driving through Southern Africa can be a very rewarding experience if you approach it with the correct attitude. —The preceding comment was added by CharlieCares (talk • contribs)

As nobody else has commented in almost a week, I'll plunge forward and create Driving in South Africa and move most of the information there.

Ps. please feel free to add the above information to the new article. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:19, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Done ϒpsilon (talk) 20:34, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Wikidata items for dynamic map

Below is the map with all Wikidata items for the districts of South Africa. The tool Wikidata Extractor has been used to create the mapshapes.--Renek78 (talk) 16:08, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Okay who broke the listings this time?

Swept in from the pub

South_Africa#Emergency_and_medical_assistance No information, just a large red error message. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:16, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Digging through the article's history, this edit in early August introduced the first errors. -- ϒψιλον (talk) 18:35, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Fixed. ARR8 (talk) 18:46, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

I thought I fixed/reverted all of these... sorry :-/ -- andree.sk(talk) 06:56, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

12-hour clock or 24-hour clock?

Which is used more commonly in SA? Ground Zero (talk) 17:29, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Coronavirus Travel Restrictions

Regarding Covid-19 controls, I think they opened up the country to international flights once again as of today. Do you think we should update the alert? Lazarus1255 (talk) 20:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Isn't the omicron wave well and truly over in South Africa? Should we remove the COVID-19 warning? At the very least, it has to be copy edited. I'll do some quick edits, so that we're not laughingstocks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:09, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

How new is the South African variant

The first line of the covid box says the following:

A new variant of COVID-19 is spreading in South Africa, which is more transmissible than the original virus. While South Africa's borders are open, travel to South Africa is strongly discouraged. Some countries have even banned travellers coming from South Africa.

Hasn't it been about 10 months since the variant emerged? Is that variant still an issue with South Africa today, or are they, just like the rest of the world, challenged by Delta. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:54, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• South African-Money01.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:22, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

• Evidently, money is subject to a restricted copyright in South Africa, so if we want to use this photo as fair use, we'll have to upload it locally. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

On verge of civil war?

Take this for whatever it's worth: "‘Stockpile food and water’: South Africa faces ‘civil war’ conditions if power grid collapses":

South Africa is on the verge of “collapse” amid rolling blackouts and warnings a total power grid failure could lead to mass rioting on the scale of a “civil war”.

Western embassies including the United States and Australia have advised their citizens in the country to stock up on “several days worth” of food and water and be on high alert during extended blackouts sweeping the country.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national “state of disaster” on February 9 in response to the record electricity shortage, which has seen state-owned power company Eskom institute rolling blackouts – dubbed “load shedding” – lasting up to 12 hours in some cases.[...]

“Eskom estimates, in the best case scenario, it would take six to 14 days to restart the power grid,” the official said. “There are a few feeder lines from other countries, but not enough to help with a black start situation.”

The official warned of mass looting and civil unrest if the grid collapsed, quoting an unnamed individual as saying, “What’s left after a blackout would be what was left after a civil war.”[...]

Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:15, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, I wouldn't take the news.com.au article at face value. While there is always the possibility of a civil war, this isn't the first time that media outlet has jumped the gun. I also am not too sure where they source their content from, as they have copied content from unsourced Reddit posts various times before (that link isn't the only case this happened, but it goes to show that their credibility isn't the most reliable compared to other Australian media outlets). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:31, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

That's good to know. The article is very alarmist, to say the least. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:15, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

About 19 days later, here's another article where news.com.au overexaggerated the point. To quote the first paragraph:

France is “burning” after a government move sparked the biggest nationwide protest in history, complete with fuel shortages, mass arrests and wild claims the crisis now resembles “civil war”.

While the protests in France are violent, they are nowhere near a "civil war". --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 08:26, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm in SA right now, admittedly as a coddled tourist in that family members and drivers are taking us around. They talk frankly about the risks of crime, but no-one has mentioned collapse, civil war, or mass rioting. The EFF staged a "national strike" on Monday, which involved some violence in a few places, but otherwise fizzled. South Africans are learning how to deal with load-shedding. A collapse of the grid would be a different kettle of fish, but that article seems ridiculously alarmist. I bet it got a lot of clicks. Wikivoyage is not playing the game of getting clicks. Ground Zero (talk) 15:47, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

No mention of Loadshedding

One of the most prevalent issues for tourists entering South Africa are the rolling blackouts and in some places power can be out for up to 12 hours a day. Many tourists I have hosted in rental are completely oblivious of the constant power outages that have been present daily since 2016 often resulting in complaints. I suggest someone should add a section or a warning that power is unlikely to be accessible for most periods of the day, since there is not one mention of this in the article which is quite shocking. 197.94.65.160 11:49, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I think that would be a very useful addition to the article. As you are South African, you would be the best person here to make the edit. Wikivoyage is the travel guide you can edit. Ground Zero (talk) 13:47, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

User:197, Thanks for your contribution. I hope you will make other edits to SA articles to help improve our coverage of your country. Ground Zero (talk) 12:41, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Race

There was a 2½-page Race subsection of Respect, explaining terminology that was official in the Apartheid era and still is in use by some, but disapproved by others. The section gave no guidance on in what contexts the terminology might be appropriate. I assume the classification shouldn't be used by visitors to the country (unless they are involved in history or research where it is relevant, and then should have better guides to it).

Some of the content could be moved to People or the history sections in Understand (where you can find different groups, what languages they speak, how they arrived), but it and probably the context need to be reworked for it to fit. I am now simply replacing the explanations with a summary and short discussion. I'm leaving most of the general discussion alone

–LPfi (talk) 16:01, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@Ground Zero: Do we need to say coloured in contexts not about history? According to Race and apartheid:

"Coloured: a mixed-race cultural group with white and African ancestors from the early colonial period, but also the indigenous Khoisan peoples, descendants of the Cape Malay slaves and the ethnic Chinese community"

and

"Although you probably will hear those terms, it might be better to avoid using them yourself altogether. For the indigenous, think of Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, etc. instead."

I would hope we could use that latter advice (it is is my wording, but hopefully retaining the spirit of what was there before).

Now we use "Coloured" e.g. in the sentence

"[Cape Town is] the heart of South Africa's Coloured and Cape Malay communities."

and

"Afrikaans is the mother tongue of the majority of the white and Coloured population."

Is Afrikaans the mother tongue of most Khoisan people and ethnic Chinese? Is Cape Town the heart of the Khoisan communities? Why do we explicitly mention the Cape Malay people when they are already included?

Perhaps English is the mother tongue of most of the group "with white and African ancestors from the early colonial period", perhaps it's the heartland for their communities? Now, repeating that definition is awkward, but using a word that includes the Khoisan and Chinese seems rather misleading.

–LPfi (talk) 07:30, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

The Coloured people of mixed white and black ancestry to my understanding are traditionally primarily Afrikaans-speakers. I don't think the advice for visitors to avoid using those terms in speech means it's offensive for us to use this term in writing as a convenient short-hand that's well understood in South Africa and referred to by South Africans. And on the basis that when speaking of the Cape, it's understood that the Khoisan and Chinese people are not the default meaning of "Coloured", the remarks you've quoted seem clear enough to me. If you think that's a real issue, do you also think that talking about white South Africans could be considered to refer to Japanese people by default, simply because they were (from what I recall) considered "honorary whites" under Apartheid? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

What is and isn't offensive for South Africans, that I do not know, but I am afraid that we are lumping people together in an unfortunate way (which is often the case with generalisations by "race").

I don't know why I should understand that Khoisan and Chinese should be excluded when talking about "Coloured" in the Cape. If the words have an other meaning in common speech in South Africa than the obsolete legal one we present in Respect, then that should be told in an obvious place before using the word.

I used quotes for coloured when I supposed the legal sense was meant, GZ changed to Coloured, which also seems to refer to a formal definition. White is used uncapitalised without quotes, which seems to refer to an everyday meaning, which I assume usually doesn't include East Asians, but whether it does include the Japanese in South Africa, I have no idea (but talking about mother tongues, they are hardly a big enough group to matter).

–LPfi (talk) 09:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I replaced "Coloured" by "Cape Coloured", the term used in Cape Town, in the description of the city. I assume that handles the problem for the bullet. For Talk, it might be that the coloured in the sense used by GZ and IK dominate the coloured in the obsolete legal sense, which would make the statements on language and political leanings correct whether or not the Khoisan and Chinese are included in the figures. I am still not very happy about using the word, but I can accept it, as I don't see it now causing misunderstandings. Actually, as the San and Khoikhoi traditionally lived by the cape, I assume you can get to see some of their culture by visiting Cape Town. –LPfi (talk) 10:14, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the application of the term to Khoisan and Chinese South Africans, only with reference to mixed race and Cape Malay. During my brief experience in SA last year (mostly in Cape Town), I had to get used to the using the term because it is what is used. Perhaps @Pbsouthwood: could help here. Ground Zero (talk) 11:13, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Here responding to a ping, but not sure what the question is. What I can say though, is that there are not many people in Cape Town who would identify as Khoisan except maybe a few for political reasons. Plenty who would probably have some Khoisan or KhoiKhoi somewhere in their ancestry, but unless trying to make some political point I would not expect them to make a big deal of it. On the other hand, I just live here, to me they are just local people. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:46, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: At least based on Wikipedia, under Apartheid, the South African Chinese and Cape Malays were classified under "coloured" as well. Is that accurate? And I recall people telling me that Japanese people were classified as "white" under Apartheid. The dog2 (talk) 14:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I remember reading that Japanese businessmen were treated as "honorary whites" so that they weren't repelled and prompted to stop investing by facing racial discrimination. The Nazis had a similar policy toward their Japanese allies (though I believe that would have been ended immediately if the Axis powers had won, and then the Nazis would have fought against Japan; no way to know that for sure). Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:31, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

And just to clarify my point, to my knowledge, the South African Chinese and Malays don't identify as "coloured". They were just classified as such by the Apartheid government to determine what facilities they were allowed to use. But if you ask them what their ethnic background is, they will say "Chinese" or "Malay" respectively. The dog2 (talk) 15:39, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Probably true. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:42, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: Sorry, but could you please check the "Respect" section again. To my knowledge, using the term "Kalahari Bushmen" to refer to the Khoisan peoples is today considered racist, and that's something that foreigners might not know because it's been so widely used. The dog2 (talk) 18:03, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

w:San people#Names has some discussion, which shows that the issue is complicated. The usage has developed significantly in a process that probably started after apartheid, and the sources for that discussion are a bit old, so it probable cannot be trusted for the current situation. –LPfi (talk) 06:38, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

The dog2, I don't think I have ever met a person who realistically claimed identity in the ethnic group under discussion, I am not up to date on the genuine academic position, if there is one, and do not trust what politicians and journalists claim, so I will not give a personal opinion other than I would refer to them as people, and try not to label them unnecessarily. I prefer not to be labeled with my ethnic group, and resent it any time I am required to fill in a space on an official form, as the main reason it is used is to treat people unequally. We are 30 years out of apartheid, it is way past time to drop the stick. Also, what LPfi says. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:04, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi am at SA

Swept in from the pub

How to use this app to travel

41.114.193.222 18:34, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

It is a travel guide, so mostly you use it by looking up destinations. These are arranged in a hierarchy & you might look at higher-level articles like France or even Europe when planning a trip, then lower level ones like Paris for details as you go. For most destinations, it is a good idea to at least skim the country article -- which covers things like language & laws -- as well as reading up on your actual destination.

There are also articles for things that apply at many destinations like altitude sickness or bargaining; see Travel topics for a list.

There are also Itineraries for particular routes, anything from the Kokoda Track through New Guinea to Literary London. Pashley (talk) 20:29, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There is also an offline version. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:22, 15 July 2024 (UTC)